. 2015 Nov;105(11):2228–2236. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2015.302819

TABLE 1—

Obesity-Related Arguments Made by the Food Industry in Major Newspapers: United States, 2000–2012

Argument Type (% of All Arguments)	Exemplar
Industry is part of the solution (33%)	“We are a strong believer and supporter of self-regulation and the current industry proposals to strengthen that.”—Alan Harris, Chief Marketing Officer, Kellogg Co.⁶⁵^(pB1)
Government overreach (25%)	“The government doesn’t have the right to social engineer. It doesn’t have a right to protect us from ourselves.”—J. Justin Wilson, Research Analyst, Center for Consumer Freedom⁶⁶^(pB1)
Products are not responsible (24%)	“Childhood obesity is the result of many factors. Blaming it on a single factor, including soft drinks, is nutritional nonsense.”—Richard Adamson, Vice President for Scientific and Technical Affairs, National Soft Drink Association⁶⁷^(pT10)
Individuals are responsible (15%)	Food establishments “should not be blamed for issues of personal responsibility and freedom of choice.”—Steven Anderson, President, National Restaurant Association⁶⁸^(pCN15)
Obesity is not a problem (3%)	“Americans have been force-fed a steady diet of obesity myths by the ‘food police,’ trial lawyers, and even our own government.”—Center for Consumer Freedom advertisement quoted in a news article⁶⁹^(p12)

Note. Our coding instrument contained 7 discrete arguments. We combined 3 related codes into the overall argument category that “Individuals are responsible” for the purpose of analysis (arguments relating to personal responsibility for obesity, parental responsibility, and those arguing that individuals should know that certain foods lead to obesity or other diet-related diseases).