NYU Sydney Instructor Jane Elkington, who teaches global public health in a class called Environmental Health in  Global World, describes a guest lecture by a visiting faculty member from NY, the renowned food studies advocate Marion Nestle. Her description highlights how meaningful collaborations can be between global and NY faculty:

I usually ask students at the end of the semester how their view of environmental health has changed since our first class. The most frequent responses are that it is more complex, more political and more linked with the world’s ‘big’ issues than they first thought. Indeed, every big topic in our world today – climate change, globalization, big business, poverty, corruption…. does have an enormous impact on our environment and thus on global health. Change the environment and you change health risks – it works for and against good health.

We spend a fair bit of our time in Environmental Health in a Global World (EHGW) talking about the negative influences of the environment on our health, as well as what we can do to create environments that are healthy and that promote healthy behaviour.

My own introduction to the complex and often political nature of environmental health, was early in my career when I was working for the New South Wales Department of Health. We were investigating the prevention of scald injuries in children and found that our own Australian Standard for home hot water delivery temperature, required a minimum storage temperature of 60^oC. At this temperature it takes just a few seconds to deliver a third degree burn. Following the lead of 29 states in the US (in the early 1990s) we set about to change the Australian Standard to 50^oC. This seemed like a straightforward, effective, sustainable and evidence-based approach. However, we had fierce opposition: “You will increase the risk of Legionnaires disease”, “Child safety is a matter of supervision”, “Households will run out of hot water”. These objections were not coming from infectious disease experts, or concerned citizens – but the major energy companies. We discovered that around 30% of an Australian home’s electricity bill was due to their hot water system – the higher the temperature, the higher the bill. There it was – the threat to profits! This was totally confirmed when the marketing manager of our largest electricity supplier said to me “You don’t know what you are doing to a billion dollar industry!” This was my introduction to “big business” and environmental health – often in conflict.

So, when I was asked early in the semester if I was interested in the possibility of a visiting NYU faculty member, Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health Marion Nestle, a world renowned nutritionist and advocate, talking to my class about her latest battles in ‘taking on the food and soda giants’, the answer was, ‘Absolutely!’. We already had a scheduled class on food and the environment – so how lucky were we to hear about that from Professor Nestle while she was on sabbatical in Sydney!

Professor Nestle was in town at the University of Sydney extending her research into conflicts of interest between the food industry and sponsorship of food and nutrition research. Her book “Soda Politics: Tackling the Soda Giants (and winning)” published last year, exposed the tactics of Coca-Cola and Pepsi to create their markets among children, minorities and low-income countries. The book exposes the practice of soft drink companies sponsoring health research that deliberately seeks to conclude that obesity can best be addressed through exercise, not calorie intake reduction – to deflect the growing focus on the negative impact of sugar. Her goal in this area has been to get Coca Cola and other ‘soda giants’ to admit that they are a big part of the problem – and now they have done that.

The students in EHGW and I were treated to a lecture by “the world’s second most powerful foodie” as dubbed by Forbes Magazine. We heard about public health and advocacy, and the power of handing the evidence over to consumers. We learned that this can help turn the tide in battles against companies who are concerned only with their own financial interests. Professor Nestle also helped the students consider the impact of climate change on food security, as well as the threats to food safety which is a by-product of almost every “natural” disaster. The discussion paved the way beautifully for lectures later in the semester about tobacco, asbestos, firearms, lead, and climate change – all issues on which “big business” has worked hard to deny the evidence of the need for change. Professor Nestle showed that when you meet resistance you know you are pushing the right buttons, you are actually poised to make a difference – so it can be quite energizing. She indicated that she totally admired Australia taking on the tobacco industry (and winning) with our world’s first tobacco plain packaging legislation. What a great endorsement that was for the assignment students were about to undertake: to consult with stakeholders in our tobacco plain packaging and report back to the class.

If any of my EHGW students find their way into a career in public health, I’m sure that Professor Nestle’s presentation (a tiny sneak peek into a career laced with courage, conviction and success) would have shown them that some battles are worth fighting.