Obesity, International Food and Beverage Industries, and Self‐Regulation: The Fragmentation of Information Strategies

• Author: Jørgen Dejgård Jensen,Karsten Ronit
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.145
• Published date: 01 September 2015
• Date: 01 September 2015

Obesity, International Food and Beverage Industries,

and Self-Regulation: The Fragmentation of

Information Strategies

Jørgen Dejgård Jensen and Karsten Ronit

This article explores how large international companies in the breakfast cereal, snack, and beverage

industries address the issue of obesity, and how their strategies are governed by various forms of

self-regulation. In a f‌irst step, we study websites of ten companies and identify f‌ive different

dimensions: (i) mission statements, (ii) educational commitment statements, (iii) nutrition labeling,

(iv) marketing code of conduct, and (v) education initiatives aimed at professionals. Based on a

coding of these activities, we conducted hierarchical cluster analysis and selected f‌ive case companies

for in-depth investigation. This analysis reveals different types of self-regulation strategies, ref‌lecting

differences in levels of commitment and instrumentation. Some companies pursue defensive

strategies, some with an element of “blame-control,” whereas others adopt offensive strategies to

promote their products. Differences in market communication strategies can be attributed to

variations in product portfolio and market orientation, and can also be seen as attempts to forestall

public regulation.

KEY WORDS: food industry, obesity, information strategies, self-regulation

Introduction

Over recent decades, obesity has emerged as a serious lifestyle disease in

Western societies and in a growing number of developing countries (United

Nations, 2011), with inappropriate diets identif‌ied as one of the key factors

causing obesity (WHO, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2014). Economic and social factors are

key determinants for the obesity epidemic—factors that together constitute the

“obesogenic” environment and create an unhealthy environment for adults and

children alike (Lobstein & Dibb, 2005). Such factors may, for instance, include the

physical and economic availability of products, the sociocultural norms structur-

ing eating habits, and the access to relevant and reliable information. Generic

health and nutrition information is often provided by government authorities.

Health and nutrition are entangled issues (WHO & FAO, 2003), and public

agencies have taken up the task of informing consumers to empower these as

World Medical & Health Policy, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2015

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actors in the marketplace. Much nutrition and health information related to

lifestyle diseases, however, is also provided by the food and beverage industry, in

terms of advertising and production promotion activities, product labeling,

lifestyle recommendations, and public statements. Because of the obesity epidem-

ic, the role of the food and beverage industry is facing signif‌icant challenges

(Caballero, 2007; Grow & Schwartz, 2014; James, 2008; Yach et al., 2010). Hence,

given the pressures by national governments, intergovernmental agencies, and

consumer groups—e.g., statements like “the food industry can play a signif‌icant

role in promoting healthy diets” (WHO, 2012)—and the ultimate risk of new and

stricter rules being imposed through public regulation, business is challenged to

take preemptive action, e.g., by demonstrating its capacity to maintain high

standards in responsible information dissemination regarding nutrition and

health in various self-regulation schemes. Under self-regulation, companies or

industry associations commit themselves to comply with self-stated standards in

their relations with consumers, and they formulate these commitments in specif‌ic

programs, such as codes of conduct. They def‌ine ways to achieve this regarding,

for example, marketing activities or information dissemination, and thus commit

themselves to observing not only public regulation but private standards as well.

To different degrees, the companies also report on these activities and try to show

how they comply with their various commitments. There is, however, a risk that

the voluntary standards adopted by companies and industries are low and that

they will not be correctly implemented, if not monitored and scrutinized by other

parties (Ronit & Jensen, 2014). Many food corporations are transnational and face

different regulatory environments in different countries or jurisdictions. Studies

show that there are differences in public regulation between the United States

and Europe (Vogel, 2012), and also that there is a preference for single-f‌irm action

in self-regulation rather than coordinated industry action in the United States,

although industry initiatives are found here as well. European industry initiatives

have def‌ined higher minimum standards and are followed closely by the

European Commission. The EU-Pledge, establishing common nutrition standards

on advertising to children, was encouraged by the Commission and adopted in

2007, and in 2008 the International Food and Beverage Alliance (IFBA) adopted

similar standards at the global level as a response to WHO encouragement. These

industry initiatives show that the political and sociocultural environment has an

impact on where they emerge and how they expand. These initiatives have

worked to both achieve goals and to forestall government intervention, and it is a

contested political issue how much pressure public institutions should put on the

industries. There is an awareness of the pitfalls of private regulation, but in

general political attention is directed at the industry as such and not at individual

f‌irms. New initiatives, such as the Access to Nutrition Foundation, are emerging

to monitor and report on the behavior of f‌irms in the food and beverage

industries; this organization has launched the Access to Nutrition Index (ATNI,

2015), but it is still too early to evaluate these efforts.

Companies operating in many countries have incentives to be offensive in

inf‌luencing market communication standards to the maximum possible extent,

Jensen/Ronit: Obesity, International Food and Beverage Industries, and Self-Regulation 279