Save Harry from the Food Police
By Frances B. Smith
WASHINGTON (November 20, 2001)In today's climate, many advocacy organizations are reassessing their priorities, especially if they deal with risk issues. But not the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). They're happy being the "food police" and waging silly battles against junk food, snack food, movie popcorn, Italian food, Chinese food -- you name it, they hate it if it tastes good. Their newest "war on junk food" focuses on Coca-Cola and their commercial tie-in with Harry Potter.
CSPI -- always on the lookout for the gullible media to tout its "nutrition only" view of the food world -- is waging war against Coke on its web pages and at cinemas. Guess what horrible thing Coca-Cola has done? It has paid $150 million for the right to put Harry's bespeckled face on its sodas to coincide with the opening of the movie event of the year, "Harry and the Sorcerer's Stone."
Poor Harry Potter. He not only has the evil Voldemort stalking him, but he now has the "food police" dogging his steps to keep him and other kids from ever having a drink of Coca-Cola.
Harry can't hide from this campaign by staying in England either. CSPI has its Coke-cops around the world, it brags. Harry and his friends may not be able to escape even using the cloak of invisibility -- there's probably a ghost or two who followed CSPI anti-food recommendations and gave up eating because it was no fun anymore and now patrols the corridors of Hogwarts School.
Fortunately for Harry and his friends, they seem to get well fed at Hogwarts with menus that the fat-a-phobic CSPI would abhor -- sausages, bacon, and "fat, roast turkeys," fries, gravy, Chocolate Frogs, trifles and cake. And outside the dining room, they eat chocolate and raspberry ice cream with chopped nuts, and homemade fudge. Harry too seems to like an occasional treat of Mars Bars.
What CSPI seems not to realize is that kids reading the Harry Potter books are much more likely to salivate over some of the treats in the novels than over the soft drink labels. Perhaps CSPI needs to change the focus of its campaign and instead wage its food war against the magicians at Hogwarts who produce this mouth-watering food. Or they should try to get J.K. Rowling to censor her books and put her characters immediately on CSPI's recommended veggie diet with fruits and whole grains. Maybe CSPI should organize a boycott of Harry Potter books, movies, and toys -- they could carry placards calling him a bad-diet role model for kids.
But they're too clever by half for that approach. It's really ironic that CSPI accuses Coke of being opportunistic by trying to use this icon to foist its "liquid candy" on kids. Yet the food police themselves are using the hoopla about Harry and the movie's release for their own self-interest -- to get media attention for their organization and convert that into more money flowing into their own coffers for more silly campaigns.
Smith is executive director of Consumer Alert, a national consumer group in Washington, DC.
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