A new TV commercial shows kids eating hot dogs in a school cafeteria and one boy's haunting lament: "I was dumbfounded when the doctor told me I have late-stage colon cancer."
But the boy doesn't have cancer.
The commercial's sponsors say it's a dramatization that highlights research linking processed meats with higher odds of getting colon cancer.
But that connection is based on studies of adults, not children, and the increased risk is slight, even if you ate a hot dog a day.
The bottom line from several nutritionists familiar with the ad is this: Hot dogs aren't exactly a "health food," but eating one every now and then probably won't hurt you.
. . .
"My concern about this campaign is it's giving the indication that the occasional hot dog in the school lunch is going to increase cancer risk," said Colleen Doyle, the American Cancer Society's nutrition director. "An occasional hot dog isn't going to increase that risk."
The National Hot Dog & Sausage Council called the new ad an alarmist scare tactic, but the promoters, a group called The Cancer Project, defend their campaign.
Dr. Neal Barnard, who heads the project, called the ad "a way to raise appropriate concern about a deadly concern." Barnard also heads The Cancer Project, an offshoot of his anti-meat advocacy group. It is part of a campaign to improve foods in schools and get the government to stop providing processed meats.
. . .
Hot dogs may be considered as American as apple pie, but Barnard said it's time to change that tradition.
"Children are born with no traditions whatsoever," he said. "You or I might think a hot dog, that just goes with baseball. . . . We can always change our traditions to be healthful."
The ad is based on an analysis of five studies in adults by scientists working with cancer research groups not affiliated with Barnard's.
Their report last November claimed eating 50 grams of processed meats a day for several years increases colorectal cancer risk by 21 percent. That equals about one hot dog a day.
Eating a hot dog once or twice a month would mean up to about a 1.4 percent increased risk, said dietitian Karen Collins, nutrition adviser with the American Institute for Cancer Research, which analyzed the studies.
"The risk we get from things like lack of physical activity, excess body weight, lack of adequate vegetables and fruits -- these are much more important to work on than to worry about" a 1.4 percent increased risk, she said.
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