Foodspin Portal

Welcome to the Foodspin Portal on Powerbase

This article is part of the Foodspin project of Spinwatch. Foodspin is a project dedicated to exposing and reporting on the spin and lobbying efforts of the food industry. It is part of Powerbase—your guide to networks of power, lobbying and deceptive PR. We track the activities of food companies, front groups and PR agencies who disseminate misleading information about issues such as nutrition, obesity and the food supply chain. Powerbase has a policy of strict referencing and is overseen by an Managing editor and a Sysop and several Associate Portal editors. Priority food pages UK level Westminster Diet and Health Forum - What does it do? National Obesity Forum, is it just a front group? How are the Associate Parliamentary Health Group and Policy Connect related? Mediasmart - what is its function? Change4Life and Business4Life how do they work? Save Kids TV - Front group or genuine campaigning organisation? Advertising Education Forum and Food Advertising Unit - needs expanding British Nutrition Foundation - How active is the BNF today? EU and Global level Codex Alimentarius International Obesity Taskforce - Is it a front group? European Parliament Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety World Sugar Research Organisation - Needs expanding International Food Information Council International Life Sciences Institute European Food Information Council EU Platform for Action on Diet, Physical Activity & Health

Obesity Obesity has already reached epidemic proportions in many Western countries. We ask whether organisations such as Association for the Study of Obesity and National Obesity Forum are playing a constructive role in the debate on obesity, or whether they simply promote the interests of companies with a stake in obesity-related policy. The portal looks at how obesity-related groups have often been funded by companies such as LighterLife, GlaxoSmithKline and Kelloggs. Food front groups Major players in the food industry have consistently acted collectively to influence public views of food to their advantage. Spending vast sums of money on advertising, the food industry also has created various front groups which, despite innocuous-sounding names, are little more than spokespeople for the industry. Groups such as the International Life Sciences Institute and the British Nutrition Foundation appear at first to be professional, neutral organisations. Such organisations are, however, little more than slyly disguised industry-backed front groups promoting a one-sided agenda for industry. Claims of independence and neutrality amount to little more than window-dressing.

Categories Categories associated with this page: Foodspin Food Industry lobby groups Foodspin Front Groups Food and Agriculture Industry Foodspin Government Agencies Food lobbyists and PR consultants Foodspin Policy Groups Food NGO's and Consumer groups|- References and Resources

Getting Started Looking for somewhere to start? To learn how you can edit any article right now, visit Powerbase:About, Welcome, newcomers, our Help page, Frequently Asked Questions, A quick guide to editing or experiment in the sandbox. Or contribute a new article: go to Quick Guide to Getting Started. Research and Writing Tips How to research front groups | Resources for studying propaganda | Research using the web Can you help? Powerbase can be made more effective if more people join the project. If you have research or writing skills or just spare time, you can help. If you are unsure where to start, you could expand some of the recently created but currently very brief articles. (If you look at the recent changes page you will see some noted as being 'stubs' - articles that may just be a line or two and needing to be fleshed out). So if you would like to add to some of those you would be most welcome. There is an automatically updated page which includes the pages which have been signalled by Powerbase users as most wanted. In addition there is a page which includes a list of Things you can do to help. Or if you would like some other suggestions closer to your interests you could drop Powerbase editor, David Miller an email. His address is editor AT powerbase.info Start Here View The Latest Articles View Articles By Category View The Most Popular Articles Create An Account Or Log In Change Your Preferences Write a new Article

Powerbase history Powerbase is a collaborative venture initiated by Spinwatch in collaboration with Lobbywatch, GM Watch Red Star Research and Corporate Watch, but put into effect by a wide variety of volunteers and independent researchers. Contributors are now working on 19,419 articles. Disclaimer: Powerbase is an encyclopedia of people, issues and groups shaping the public agenda. It is a project of the Powerbase—email editor AT powerbase.info. Antispam note: To avoid attracting spam email robots, email addresses on Powerbase are written with AT in place of the usual symbol, and we have removed "mail to" links. Replace AT with the correct symbol to get a valid address. We regret the inconvenience this entails. Campaign for more effective antispam regulations. Read the full disclaimer References