Is McDonald’s what the doctor ordered?

For the last 28 years, Dr Dean Ornish has been trying to persuade people to eat healthier. In his five books, he champions low-fat diets; he...

For the last 28 years, Dr Dean Ornish has been trying to persuade people to eat healthier. In his five books, he champions low-fat diets; he was one of the first researchers to show that stringent healthy eating can reverse chronic illness, particularly heart disease. Among his advice to patients is to eat a lot of vegetables and minimally processed foods, and avoid all things greasy.

Ornish also works for the McDonald’s Corp. As a paid consultant, he meets with top executives, gives talks to employees and recently wrote nutritional words of wisdom about diet and breast cancer for table displays to go into all McDonald’s restaurants in the US for Mother’s Day.

He is not the only one straddling this line between science and commerce. In the last two years, at least two dozen leading nutrition scientists and experts have started working for large food companies, either as consultants or as members of health advisory boards.

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As concerns mount over the US’ elevated obesity rates and the surge in diet-related illnesses, food companies have received heightened scrutiny from Congress and face threats of litigation from trial lawyers. In response, companies have fashioned “health and wellness” initiatives. And companies like McDonald’s, Kraft, PepsiCo and the Coca-Cola Co have created advisory boards, putting people who might otherwise be critics on the payroll.

Their dual roles have created a deep divide in the scientific community. Some critics say that working for a large food company compromises the credibility of scientists’ research and makes them look like part-time company representatives. They say advisory boards and tacit endorsements from health gurus do more to make companies look good and help them sell products than inspire change.

“These firms can say we have all these really important people who care about health working with us, and that takes some of the heat off,” said Marion Nestle, a nutrition expert. “But all they’re doing is making junk food marginally healthier.”

But scientists working for the food companies say they hope to improve the American diet from within.

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Ornish says he wants to help McDonald’s become a healthier company, a place that one day will sell a lot more of the kind of food he counsels people to eat. He won’t say how much McDonald’s pays him, but he says the money is not why he’s doing it. “A lot of colleagues were puzzled at first by my decision, but now they see it as a logical extension of what I’ve been doing my whole career,” said Ornish, who also works for PepsiCo and ConAgra Foods. “It’s an amazing platform to make a difference.”

But one medial specialist recruited to a food company advisory board has already decided that membership was not worth the cost. Dr George L. Blackburn, director of the Center for the Study of Nutrition Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a prominent researcher on obesity issues, decided to step down from a McDonald’s advisory council on balanced lifestyles two months ago.

He said he left because he was disappointed that McDonald’s had not incorporated his recommendations into its recent “Balanced Lifestyles” campaign. “Our message here at the center is threefold: cut the calories, eat quality food and exercise,” said Blackburn. “The first two messages weren’t making it through.”

McDonald’s executives said they were surprised by Blackburn’s resignation, and they were committed to changing the company’s menu and encouraging better nutrition habits among customers. — NYT