Transcript Reaching out to Mothers Public Health and Child Welfare

“The more things change,
the more they stay the
same”: A study of nutrition
supplementation advertising
in the 20th century
Rima D. Apple, Ph.D.
University of WisconsinMadison
Growth in Vitamin Supplement
Sales –United States
1931 - $12-million
 Today – more than $25billion

Opposition to Vitamin
Supplementation
Opponents of vitamin advertising
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
U.S. Federal Trade Commission
American Medical Association
Opposition to Vitamin
Supplementation
Claims against vitamin advertising
False Hopes
Waste of Money
Dangerous
Changing Focus of the
Industry


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1930s: Vitamin D
1940s: Vitamin B1
1960s-1970s: Vitamin C
1990s: Anti-oxidants
Over-arching Themes of
Vitamin Advertisements
BEAUTY
INSURANCE
Early Beauty Advertising
Through pharmacists
“Women buy vitamins for beauty
as well as for health because they
regard the two things as
inseparable.”
“Beauty is your duty”
Vita-Ray
Advertisement –
Good Housekeeping,
1931
Early Beauty Advertising

Through print media
-"Now you can feed your skin" through the medium of codliver oil, vitamin D "can enter
the body via the skin in
quantities sufficient to produce
their health-giving benefits.”


Walter Eddy, June 1938
Supporters of Vitamin-D
Products
Manufacturers
Good Housekeeping Bureau
Denouncers of Vitamin-D
Products
U.S. Federal Trade Commission
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
American Medical Association and its
journal Hygeia
Vitamin-D Controversy in the
Popular Media
“Beauty for the Asking”
1939-RKO film
Starring Lucille Ball
“Beauty for the Asking” (1939)



Jean Russell (Lucille Ball), a shrewd
capitalist, invents a face cream
Resistance to the cream from
consumers because it is not turtle oil
cream, which “must be good. It is the
most expensive cream on the market."
Russell’s response: "Well, it's not as
expensive as ours."
“Beauty for the Asking” (1939)
Russell refuses to add vitamins to her
cream: “It's alright to charge women
eight times what we should, they won't
buy if we don't." But that's as far as I'll
go."
Her reason: “Only vitamin D can be
absorbed by the skin. We can't get
enough of that into the cream to do any
good."
Vitamins Plus Advertisement1938
“Wake up and enjoy life.”
Avoid Avitaminosis
Vitamin Plus Claims


“Avitaminosis” not restricted to “poor
people.”
Example of an endorsement:

People would meet her on the street and
say 'You just don't look a bit well.' And it
was true. Her make-up wouldn't stay put.
Her hair came all out of curl ten minutes
after it was set. No use to put on nail
polish ... it just chipped right off again.
Response to Claims for
Vitamin Plus

A consumer:


Was the product "good and worth the
$2.75."
The FDA:

“We are familiar with no scientific evidence
which indicates that deficiency of vitamins
has any bearing of whether make-up will
stay put, curls remain in the hair, or nail
polish adheres to the finger nails.”
Early Concerns



How will I know that I am getting
sufficient vitamins?
What is a well-balanced diet?
What are the effects of modern modes
of food production and processing?
Early Insurance Claims
“There is one way of being of the safe
side, however--that is to add a sufficiently
large factor of safety to the average minimum
vitamin requirement to cover possible
contingencies.”
“Therefore take your vitamin
concentrates, increase your vitamin-rich
foods, if you will. You are following a
perfectly safe dietary insurance program.
Walter Eddy, January 1939
Miles One-A-Day Vitamins
Dispute with Food and Drug
Administration
Proposed
“You will not get the greatest benefits from
‘ONE-A-DAY’ tablets unless you take them
regularly.”
FDA’s Objection to Proposed
Label
The label "implie[d] that it is necessary in
order to fully protect the user from
vitamin A and D deficiencies that the
product be taken every day. This does
not appear to be in accord with generally
accepted scientific opinions."
Miles’ Revised Label
"One-A-Day" (brand) Vitamins A and D
Tablets furnish an easy, inexpensive way
to insure that you get enough of these
essential Vitamins. Why not put the
bottle on the breakfast table as a
pleasant reminder to make taking a tablet
every day a part of your daily routine?”

Miles One-A-Day
Advertisement, 1941
A Consumer’s Response to the
Controversy
"Yes, we have vitamin bottles on our
breakfast table. But just as some days
my family does not eat their 'standard
American diet,' so too on many days I
forget to pass out the vitamins. I think it
evens itself out in the long run."
Recent Claims

“At some point, while researchers work
on figuring out where the truth lies, it
just makes sense to say that potential
benefit [of vitamin supplementation]
outweighs the cost.” (Time, 31 Dec. 2001/7 Jan.
2002, 158 (28): 150.)
Recent Claims

“The choice to use a dietary supplement
can be a wise decision that provides
health benefits.” (FDA Consumer, March-April 2002,
36 (2): 17-21.

Fortify Your Knowledge About Vitamins (FDA
video) “highlights reasons to consider taking
vitamin supplements along with tips for doing
so safely.”
http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm1827
37.htm 10/28/2010.