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Leveraging corporate social responsibility to improve consumer safety of dietary supplements sold for weight loss and muscle building

  • Practice and Public Health Policies
  • Published:
Translational Behavioral Medicine

Abstract

The potential dangers associated with dietary supplements sold for weight loss and muscle building are well documented and increasingly garnering the attention of the media, public, and government leaders. Public health professionals have an opportunity to improve population health in the context of dietary supplement use by translating scientific evidence into action. In this commentary, we discuss the potential to motivate corporate social responsibility (CSR) among manufacturers and retailers of dietary supplements sold for weight loss and muscle building. We examine levers available to public health professionals for generating voluntary corporate self-regulation by reviewing examples from successful CSR initiatives in other domains of public health and offering recommendations highlighting effective advocacy strategies. We encourage public health professionals to use one or multiple advocacy strategies to improve consumer protections for dietary supplements sold for weight loss and muscle building.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Ellen Feldberg Gordon Challenge Fund for Eating Disorders Research and the Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders. S.B.A. is supported by training grants T71-MC00009 and T76-MC00001 from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration, US Department of Health and Human Services.

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Correspondence to S. Bryn Austin ScD.

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The authors have no conflicts of interest or financial disclosures.

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This essay did not involve human subjects research.

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The findings reported have not been previously published and this manuscript is not being simultaneously submitted elsewhere. The authors have full control of all primary data and that they agree to allow the journal to review their data if requested. This essay did not involve any human subjects research data; therefore, no informed consent was required and the standards of responsible human research according to the Helsinki Declaration were not applicable. No animals were involved in this project.

Additional information

Anvita Kulkarni and Ryan Huerto joint first authors

Implications

Practice: Public health professionals who are concerned about the risk that inadequately regulated dietary supplements sold for weight loss and muscle building pose to the health and safety of youth and other vulnerable consumers should consider working in coalition with community stakeholders advocating for improved corporate social responsibility regarding the advertising and sale of these products.

Policy: The persuasive power of campaigns to motivate corporate social responsibility to improve safety of dietary supplements will be strengthened if similar efforts for change are pursued simultaneously in the legislative and executive branches of government, such as in state legislatures, offices of state attorneys general, and agencies with jurisdiction over consumer protections.

Research: Policy and organizational research will be needed to evaluate campaigns designed to motivate corporate social responsibility for dietary supplements and identify the most effective strategies for catalyzing changes that improve consumer safety.

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Kulkarni, A., Huerto, R., Roberto, C.A. et al. Leveraging corporate social responsibility to improve consumer safety of dietary supplements sold for weight loss and muscle building. Behav. Med. Pract. Policy Res. 7, 92–97 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13142-016-0434-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13142-016-0434-4

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