Fast food companies including McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken have been invited by the Department of Health to help write government policy on obesity, alcohol and diet-related disease.
Processed food and drink manufacturers including PepsiCo, Kellogg's, Unilever, Mars and Diageo are also among the businesses that have been asked to contribute to five 'responsibility deal' networks set up by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley.
Campaign groups have criticised the move as an impossible alliance between big business and public health, likening it to placing the tobacco industry in charge of smoke-free spaces.
Each network will be co-chaired by ministers to come up with policies in an overhaul of public health policy, reported The Guardian. Some are expected to be contained in the public health white paper due in the next few weeks.
Mr Lansley's reforms are seen as a test case for Tory policies on replacing state intervention with private and corporate action.
Working alongside the networks will be consumer and public health groups including Which?, Cancer Research UK and the Faculty of Public Health.
The networks, which are dominated by food and alcohol industry members, have been asked to suggest measures to tackle obesity and alcohol and diet-related issues.
Among the fast food companies to join the food responsibility deal network are the UK's leading supermarkets and Compass, the catering firm famously criticised by Jamie Oliver on his Channel 4 programme Jamie's School Dinners for manufacturing turkey twizzlers.
The food sub-group on calories is chaired by PepsiCo, the U.S. company which owns Walkers crisps.
Compass, the catering firm criticised by Jamie Oliver for making turkey twizzlers, has joined the food responsibility network
Another network aims to change behaviour, and is
chaired by the National Heart Forum, while the physical activity group is chaired by the Fitness Industry Association.
The alcohol network is chaired by the head of the lobby group Wine and Spirit Trade Association.
Leading liver specialist Sir Ian Gilmore has agreed to become a member of the alcohol network. However, he is concerned that the union of industry and public health may prove unworkable.
The Guardian, p1
