Michael F. Jacobson

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Michael F. Jacobson, who holds a Ph.D. in microbiology, co-founded the Center for Science in the Public Interest in 1971, along with two fellow scientists he met while working at the Center for the Study of Responsive Law. When his colleagues left CSPI in 1977, Jacobson served as executive director. ^[1] Today, Jacobson sit as secretary on the board of directors of the organization. ^[2]

He has been a national leader in the movement to require nutrition labels on all foods and most beverages to help consumers make informed decisions about what to consume.^{[citation needed]} He coined the phrases "junk food" and "empty calorie". ^{[citation needed]}

Jacobson is a vegetarian and sits on the national board of the "Great American Meatout." He has said that “CSPI is proud of finding something wrong with practically everything.” Jacobson and his organization have criticized a wide variety of foods and beverages as unhealthful. ^{[citation needed]}

To bring about changes in eating habits, Jacobson advocates higher taxes on foods he considers undesirable, greater use of warning labels on food and beverage packaging, restrictions on advertising and selling junk foods (“snack foods‘), and lawsuits against food producers and retailers whose practices he believes are detrimental to public health. ^{[citation needed]}

Some argue that parents have control over their children's diet can moderate their intake of sugar-sweetened soft drinks. ^{[citation needed]} However, Jacobson contends that "kids know about vending machines, and they can go to 7-eleven and get a big gulp which contains half a gallon --- a thousand calories almost --- of soda pop in a single serving. ... We've come a long way from the six-and-a-half ounce coke bottles some 50 years ago," ^{[citation needed]}

"It's the quintessential junk food. All calories, no nutrients.", says Jacobson. "We're practically drowning in soft drinks. Teenagers in particular." He proposes several warning labels including "Drinking (non-diet) soft drinks contributes to obesity and tooth decay", and "Consider switching to diet soda, water, or skim milk." "Obesity is an epidemic at the moment, with 1/3 of children either overweight or obese. Are we just going to sit around to do nothing? Or make a modest sensible step of putting a health message on a bottle?," questions Jacobson. ^{[citation needed]}

In 2005, Jacobson proposed mandatory warning labels on all containers of sugar-sweetened soft drinks, to warn consumers about the possible health risks of consuming these beverages on a regular basis.^[3]

[edit] Works

Eater's Digest: The Consumer's Fact-Book of Food Additives, Doubleday & Company Inc. (June 1972) ASIN B000H7GB4K
Booze Merchants: The Inebriating of America. Center for Science in the Public Interest (September 1983), ISBN 0-89329-099-8
Salt: The Brand Name Guide to Sodium Content. Warner Books; Reissue edition (September 1985) ISBN 0-446-35513-5
Charles P. Mitchell, Jacobson Tainted Booze. Center for Science in the Public Interest (June 1988) ISBN 0-89329-017-3
Marketing Disease to Hispanics: The Selling of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Junk Foods. Center for Science in the Public Interest (September 1989) ISBN 0-89329-020-3
Marketing Madness: A Survival Guide for a Consumer Society. Center for Science in the Public Interest (September 1989) ISBN 0-89329-020-3
The Fast Food Guide. Center for Science in the Public Interest (December 1991) ISBN 99913-31-76-X
The Completely Revised and Updated Fast-Food Guide: What's Good, What's Bad, and How to Tell the Difference. Workman Publishing Company; 2nd Revised & Updated edition (January 3, 1992) ISBN 0-89480-823-0
Safe Food: Eating Wisely in a Risky World. Berkley Pub Group (February 1993) ISBN 0-425-13621-3
What Are We Feeding Our Kids?. Workman Publishing Company (January 8, 1994) ISBN 1-56305-101-X
Restaurant Confidential. Workman Publishing Company (May 6, 2002) ISBN 0-7611-0035-0