There was an interesting article this week about the Federal Government’s role in an anti-obesity campaign while simultaneously working with corporations to sell high-fat, high-calorie dairy products to the American people. The article began with Domino’s Pizza and its slumping sales, as well as its sub-par reputation last year. Domino’s was able to kick-start a new marketing campaign with the help of a corporation called Dairy Management, after the company was panned for having some of the “worst tasting pies.” One could argue that the move was justifiable, given the need for businesses to thrive in a fragile economy, as well as benefit to consumers. The partnership was wildly successful, as consumers favored the heavier cheese pizza, restoring the company’s reputation and elevating sales to double digits. Dairy Management was created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and was effectively able to not only make Domino’s pizza more attractive, but also sell cheese as a health benefit. Federal warnings about saturated fat progressively turned much of the population to low-fat milk and away from whole milk and other dairy products. In the article, the Department of Agriculture stated that decreased milk consumption across the U.S. made cheese an alternative, important source of calcium.
Problems with this argument come up with analysis of Domino’s new products, as well as the government’s interests in the dairy industry. For starters, each slice of Domino’s new pizza has two thirds of daily intake of saturated fat, and increases risk of heart disease. The Department of Agriculture leads the national anti-obesity campaign, which discourages eating large amounts of saturated fat and calories, like those in Domino’s Dairy Management-engineered products. The government created Dairy Management to support the dairy industry through marketing, and encouraged increased consumption of milk and cheese products as a means of weight loss. However, despite suggesting cheese as an important source of calcium, Dept. of Agriculture conceded that it is high in saturated fat. Also, a 2004 study by Jean Harvey-Berino, who chairs the Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences at the University of Vermont, found that the calcium increase from these products yielded no evidence of weight loss. All things considered, the joint venture gave Domino’s a crucial boost in the worst economic environment since the 1930’s, failed to warn consumers about the risks of its products. The campaign is uninformative at best and dishonest at its worst.
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