Michelle Obama lobbied for healthy school meals. Her new nutritional drinks wouldn’t qualify
Obama wants to offer kids something healthier than soda, but some critics say that’s not good enough.
By Deena Shanker | Bloomberg
Public health advocates have long lauded Michelle Obama for her efforts to make American food healthier — especially for kids. From her perch in the White House, she led efforts to update school nutrition standards, modernize labelling on packaged foods, persuade kids to eat more fruits and vegetables, and increase their consumption of water. She even encouraged the food industry to curb the marketing of unhealthy products to children.
Now a co-founder and strategic partner at Plezi Nutrition, a maker of sweetened beverages for kids ages 6 and up, Obama says she’s offering a lower-sugar alternative to steer them away from sugary drinks. The overconsumption of such beverages among children can lead to higher risks for maladies including heart disease, diabetes, tooth decay, obesity and headaches.
As soon as “most kids get to school age, drinking only water and milk just isn’t a reality,” Obama said at a Wall Street Journal conference earlier this month. “We’ve gotta live in the real world, we’ve gotta give kids something they want.”
But Plezi’s first product is a flavored juice drink blend that, under the very standards Obama championed, could not be served in US schools.
Bloomberg News interviewed 12 independent health professionals and organizations and spoke with Plezi Chairman Sam Kass, as well as with members of the company’s advisory board. Nearly all of the experts conveyed their respect for Obama and her achievements in improving child nutrition. But most were critical of the new line of drinks.
Plezi declined to make Obama available for comment.
Plezi is entering a growing but crowded market. US soft-drink sales, which includes both soda and juice, hit $231 billion in 2022, according to data from Euromonitor, up 19% since 2017. Plezi is categorized as a public benefit corporation, a for-profit entity that also seeks to provide a specified social good.
Formally launched in April, its products are now on Target’s shelves and will be available in most Walmart stores later this summer. It is funded by its parent company, private equity firm Juggernaut Capital Partners.
The experts largely agreed that the product is an improvement on soda, though a small one. At the heart of the matter is whether “healthier than soda” is good enough for a product aimed at children as young as 6, especially one that comes with Obama’s endorsement.
Under the Obama-era school-meal regulations currently under review, US elementary and middle schools may only serve water, milk, or 100% fruit or vegetable juice with no added sweeteners (the regulations do permit schools to dilute juices with water) — and none of Plezi’s four current flavors meet these criteria.
Several of the health professionals characterized the Plezi drinks as an ultra-processed food, or one made largely from extracts of other foods or artificial additives. Numerous medical studies point to overconsumption of these kinds of foods as potential drivers of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, even death.
Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University and author of Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning), described the Plezi beverages as “standard-industry, ultra-processed products not to be promoted to kids.”
Jerold Mande, an adjunct professor of nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and chief executive officer of Nourish Science, a nonprofit focused on nutrition, served as a senior adviser for food, nutrition and consumer services at the US Department of Agriculture during the Obama administration. He said the former first lady “has done more to improve child nutrition than any other political leader.”
But “she has been ill-served by advisers who convinced her to start by targeting 6- to 12-year-olds with a flashy, ultra-processed beverage that may not be any healthier than diet soda,” he added.
In an email, Leah Dunmore, Plezi’s CEO, said that because Plezi is a low-sugar, low-calorie product with added fiber, it’s an example of a good processed food. “[To] label Plezi an ‘ultra-processed food,’ is at best cynical if not intellectually dishonest.”
Fibers, sweeteners and costs
In 2021, Harvard researchers found that from 2003 to 2018, sugary-beverage consumption among American children had gone down markedly, suggesting a positive impact from “broad-based public health efforts.” Yet the levels of consumption remained “unacceptably high,” the researchers said. At the Wall Street Journal conference, Obama referenced a statistic from a 2019 study in the journal Pediatrics: Almost half of the added sugar kids consume comes from drinks.
Plezi makes the drink in four flavors: tropical punch, orange smash, sour apple and blueberry blast. They come in colorful plastic bottles, with labels touting the added fiber and lower sugar content, and contain fruit-juice concentrates (fruit without most of the nutrients — basically just sugar), added soluble vegetable fiber and other vitamins, and plant-based sweeteners like stevia-leaf extract.
Compared with its competitors, Plezi’s sugar content is low. An 8-ounce bottle has 6 grams of sugar, 35 calories, 2 grams of fiber and 100% of the daily recommended serving of vitamin C. By contrast, an 8-ounce can of Coke has 100 calories, 26 grams of added sugar and not much else. Eight ounces of Mott’s 100% apple juice delivers 120 calories, 28 grams of added sugar and a full day’s recommended serving of vitamin C.
Kass, who also served as the White House chef and as senior policy adviser for nutrition, said Plezi worked to make the product nutrient dense, with a particular focus on fiber since most American children don’t consume enough of it.
But several experts argued that fortification, or adding nutrients like fiber to foods, doesn’t necessarily make those foods healthy. It hasn’t been shown to prevent chronic food-related illnesses like diabetes and cancer, Mande said.
“Kids are also better off getting the intact fiber in fruit, rather than the processed fiber added to Plezi,” Bonnie Liebman, director of nutrition at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, told Bloomberg. “It’s not clear that the soluble fiber would make kids feel full, and it’s unlikely to prevent constipation, but it certainly can’t hurt.” Making health claims like these can often mislead consumers, some said.
Experts also shared concerns about Plezi’s sugar substitutes: non-nutritive sweeteners such as stevia leaf and monk-fruit extracts.
Kass said these sweeteners help make Plezi a better drink for children aching for a soda. Sara Bleich, a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who has researched sugary-beverage consumption in low-income communities and among people of color, said that Plezi can potentially lower sugar consumption among children, calling it a “stepping stone to wean kids off of sodas and juices.”
Yet more than half of the experts who spoke with Bloomberg said research on the impact of the sweeteners on the health of children is extremely limited. Several of the experts said parents should limit their intake. On Monday, the World Health Organization published a report advising against the use of non-sugar sweeteners to control body weight or reduce the risk of noncommunicable disease.
An American Heart Association spokesperson pointed to the long list of known health problems caused by sugary drinks. The spokesperson added: “[Low]-calorie sweetened drinks can be a reasonable alternative on occasion, keeping in mind that water and milk are the healthiest choices,” the spokesperson wrote. The “dearth of evidence on the potential adverse effects” of these products means children should avoid their “prolonged consumption,” the spokesperson added.
Kass said Plezi consulted outside guidance on whether non-nutritive sweeteners were appropriate for children. He pointed to a 2015 study produced by a member of the Global Stevia Institute, an industry group promoting stevia, that outlined the acceptable daily intake of the sweetener. Plezi also provided a 2022 WHO report listing guidelines for non-nutritive sweeteners. Regarding the new WHO report, a Plezi spokesperson said the company will “take the necessary time to review it thoroughly.”
Part of Plezi’s pitch is that these sweeteners can help kids gradually give up super-sweetened sodas and juices. But it’s unclear if that’s realistic: While each bottle of the product has about 75% less sugar than soda, it still contains four or five sweeteners.
In addition, the price of Plezi could be prohibitive to some.
On Target.com, on a per-ounce basis, Plezi is 2-3 times more expensive than other non-soda drinks targeted at children, including Coca-Cola’s Honest Kids and Kraft Heinz’s Capri Sun drinks. It’s also more expensive than soda.
‘An ideal world’
“I understand the perspective of academics who focus on what kids should be eating in an ideal world,” but such experts “hinder progress,” Kass said. “In a lot of communities, there is no clean water, there are no apples.” He also said his company was trying to bring down the price of the drink.
Kass also said that the the school-meal regulations, which are under review, could change. Plezi is developing a line of beverages that adhere to these standards, he said. Schools should only allow water and milk, and Plezi’s current products are healthier than the currently allowable 100% juice, he added.
Kass and Shale Wong, a member of Plezi’s “Kitchen Cabinet Advisory Committee” and a professor of pediatrics and family medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, said Plezi planned to promote drinking water as the best first option for children. It will also “put real resources behind fruit and vegetable consumption,” Kass added. The company has offered few details on its plans.
While the experts largely agreed that Plezi meets the definition of ultra-processed, Lauren Au, an assistant professor in the nutrition department at the University of California at Davis, said it is healthier than the current alternatives on the market. Still, children should primarily drink water, she said.
Despite the wide use of the term ultra-processed, Kass called it “very vague.”
“We think there’s a real need here that’s unmet,” Kass said. “We owed it to kids to give kids something better and not in Whole Foods — in bodegas and corner stores and gas stations, in small towns all over the country.”
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