THURSDAY, April 15, 2010 (Health.com) — The fast-food industry has long been under fire for selling high-fat, high-calorie meals that have been linked to weight gain and diabetes, but the financial health of the industry continues to attract investors—including some of the leading insurance companies in the U.S., a new study reports.
According to Harvard Medical School researchers, 11 large companies that offer life, disability, or health insurance owned about $1.9 billion in stock in the five largest fast-food companies as of June 2009.
The fast-food companies included McDonald’s, Burger King, and Yum! Brands (the parent company of KFC and Taco Bell). Companies from both North America and Europe were among the insurers, including the U.S.-based Massachusetts Mutual, Northwestern Mutual, and Prudential Financial.
The researchers say insurance companies should sell their fast-food stock or use their influence as shareholders to make fast food healthier, by pressuring big restaurant chains to cut portion sizes or improve nutrition, for instance. There’s a “potential disconnect” between the mission of insurance companies and the often-unhealthy food churned out by companies like McDonald’s, they write.
“The insurance industry cares about making money, and it doesn’t really care how,” says the senior author of the study, J. Wesley Boyd, MD, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, in Boston. “They will invest in products that contribute to significant morbidity and mortality if doing so is going to make money.”
Dr. Boyd and his colleagues used a database that draws on financial filings and news reports to estimate the fast-food investments of the 11 companies. Their findings appear in the American Journal of Public Health.
Massachusetts Mutual and Northwestern Mutual, which both offer life, disability, and long-term care insurance, owned $367 million and $422 million in fast-food stock, respectively, much of it in McDonald’s, the authors report. Prudential, which offers life insurance and long-term disability coverage, held $356 million in fast-food stock, according to the study.
Next page: Insurance companies question the findings
