Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Perspective
  • Published:

Crystal Ball series

A food lover’s love of nutrition science, policy, and politics

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 73, pages 1551–1555 (2019)Cite this article

Subjects

In 1991, I was invited to the National Institutes of Health to speak about dietary approaches to disease prevention at a conference on the influence of behavior on cancer risk. Most of the other speakers were international physicians and scientists deeply engaged in trying to stop cigarette companies from promoting their products. In those pre-PowerPoint days, they showed slide after slide of cigarette marketing from the jungles of Africa to the high Himalayas. What particularly got my attention were the photographs shown by John Pierce of the University of California San Diego—the Joe Camel character and other examples of cigarette advertising aimed directly at children. I was stunned by these talks. I knew that the tobacco industry spent a fortune on marketing cigarettes, but its advertisements were so much a part of the landscape that I barely noticed them. I had never paid attention to how insidiously cigarette companies targeted children or populations in developing countries. The parallels to food marketing seemed obvious. I walked out of that meeting convinced that nutrition scientist ought to be scrutinizing Coca-Cola in the same way that anti-smoking scientists had scrutinized tobacco companies.

At that point, I was in my mid-50s, a tenured professor at New York University, chairing what was then its Department of Home Economics. I had managed to get that job despite being a nutrition generalist, writing and speaking about a broad range of topics related to diet and health vaguely grouped under the heading of nutrition policy. After that meeting, I began paying close attention to food industry marketing, and focused my teaching, writing, public speaking, and daily interviews with the press specifically on the ways in which food politics affects diet and health.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Nestle M, Roberts WK. Separation of ribonucleosides and ribonucleotides by a one-dimensional paper chromatographic system. Anal Biochem. 1968;22:349–51.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Nestle M, Roberts WK. An extracellular nuclease from Serratia marcescens. I. Purification and some properties of the enzyme. J Biol Chem. 1969;244:5213–8.

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Nestle M, Roberts WK. An extracellular nuclease from Serratia marcescens. II. Specif Enzym J Biol Chem. 1969;244:5219–25.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Nestle M, Sussman M. The effect of cyclic-AMP on morphogenesis and enzyme accumulation in Dictyostelium discoideum. Devel Biol. 1972;28:545–54.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Nestle M. Management of the nutrition curriculum at the University of California, San Francisco. In: Proceedings of the National Workshop on Nutrition Education in Health Professions Schools, September 30 – October 1, 1981, Washington DC. Atlanta: Emory University, 1981:65–69.

  6. Nestle M. Nutrition. In: Martin DW, Mayes PA, Rodwell VW, eds. Harper’s Review of Biochemistry, 18th edn. Lange Medical Publications 1981:565–84

  7. Nestle M. Nutrition instruction for health professions students and practitioners: strategies for the 1980s. JPEN. 1982;6:191–3.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Nestle M. An overview of diet and cancer. Geriatr Consult. 1985;4:24–25.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Nestle M. Dietary recommendations: what constitutes good nutrition, and for whom. Consult. 1983;23:271–86.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Nestle M. Nutritional support. In: Watts D, ed. Handbook of Medical Treatment, 17th edn. Greenbrae CA: Jones Medical Publications, 1983: 257–82.

  11. Nestle M, Lee PR, Baron RB. Nutrition policy update. In: Weininger J, Briggs GM, eds. Nutrition Update. 1. New York: John Wiley and Sons; 1983. p. 285–313.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service. The Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health. Publ. No. (PHS) 88-50210. Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988.

  13. Nestle M, Porter DV. Evolution of federal dietary guidance policy: from food adequacy to chronic disease prevention. Caduceus. 1990;6:43–67.

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Nestle M. Food lobbies, the food pyramid, and U.S. nutrition policy. Int J Health Serv. 1993;23:483–96.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Nestle M, Dalton S. Food aid and international hunger crises: The United States in Somalia. Agr Hum Values. 1994;11:19–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Nestle M. Mediterranean diets: historical and research overview. Am J Clin Nutr. 1995;61(suppl):1313s–1320s.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Nestle M. Dietary advice for the 1990s: the political history of the food guide pyramid. Caduceus. 1993;9:136–53.

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Nestle M. Hunger in America: A Matter of Policy. Soc Res. 1999;66:257–82.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Nestle M. Dietary supplement advertising: a matter of politics, not science. J Nutr Educ. 1999;31:278–82.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Nestle M, Jacobson MF. Halting the obesity epidemic: A public health policy approach. Public Health Rep. 2000;115:12–24.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Nestle M. Societal barriers to improved school lunch programs: rationale for recent policy recommendations. Sch Food Serv Res Rev. 1992;16:5–10.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Nestle M. Soft drink “pouring rights:” marketing empty calories. Public Health Rep. 2000;115:308–19.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Nestle M. Food biotechnology: politics and policy implications. In: Kiple KF, Ornelas-Kiple CK, eds. The Cambridge World History of Food and Nutrition, Vol II:VII.7 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000:1643–62.

  24. Nestle M. Food company sponsorship of nutrition research and professional activities: A conflict of interest? Public Health Nutr. 2001;4:1015–22.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Berg J, Nestle M, Bentley A. Food studies. In: Katz SH, Weaver WW, eds. The Scribner Encyclopedia of Food and Culture. 2. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; 2003. p. 16–18.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Nestle M. Writing the Food Studies Movement. Food, Cult, Soc. 2010;13:159–68.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Nestle M. Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health. Berkeley: University of California Press; 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  28. Nestle M. Safe Food: Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism. Berkeley: University of California Press; 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Nestle M. What to Eat. New York: North Point Press/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.

  30. Nestle M, Nesheim MC. Feed Your Pet Right. New York: Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 2010.

  31. Nestle M. Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.

  32. Nestle M, Nesheim MC. Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics. University of California Press, 2012.

  33. Nestle M. Eat, Drink, Vote: An Illustrated Guide to Food Politics. Rodale Books, 2013.

  34. Nestle M. Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning). Oxford University Press, 2015.

  35. Nestle M. Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat, Basic Books, 2018.

  36. Williams SN, Nestle M, eds. “Big Food”: Critical perspectives on the global growth of the food and beverage industry. Crit Public Health. 2015;25:245-372.

  37. Nutrition and the Sustainable Development Goals. Scaling Up Nutrition. Undated. https://scalingupnutrition.org/nutrition/nutrition-and-the-sustainable-development-goals/.

  38. Nestle M. The farm bill drove me insane. Politico. March 17, 2016. https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2016/03/farm-bill-congress-usda-food-policy-000070#ixzz43Acfpepm.

  39. Willett W, Rockström J, Loken B, Springmann M, Lang T, Vermeulen S, et al. Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. Lancet. 2019;393:447–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31788-4.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  40. Swinburn BA, Kraak VI, Allender S, Atkins VJ, Baker PI, Bogard JR, et al. The Global syndemic of obesity, undernutrition, and climate change: The Lancet Commission report. Lancet. 2019;393:791–846. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32822-8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nutrition and Food Studies, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    M. Nestle

Authors
  1. M. Nestle
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to M. Nestle.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The author declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher’s note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Nestle, M. A food lover’s love of nutrition science, policy, and politics. Eur J Clin Nutr 73, 1551–1555 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-019-0426-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-019-0426-9

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links