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WASHINGTON — Michelle Obama wants the food, beverage and entertainment industries to police themselves and stop advertising unhealthy products to kids, part of the first lady’s efforts to reduce childhood obesity. But critics say, while those industries have made strides, there’s still a long way to go.
“Marketing is harmful to kids,” said psychologist Susan Lynn, director of the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood, a coalition of activists, authors and experts on the impact of media. “It’s not good to train children to choose products based on what’s on the package or who is selling it.”
In a task force report released recently by the White House, the plea to marketers was just one of the 70 steps unveiled. Other recommendations include providing healthy food in schools, getting kids to be more physically active, and empowering and educating parents.
American children are increasingly at risk. One out of three, or 32 percent, of 2- to 19-year-olds are overweight or obese, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association, making this the first generation in history that could have shorter life-spans than their parents. In 2008, medical spending on adults attributed to obesity was an estimated $147 billion. and $3 billion was spent on overweight children, according to the task force report.
And media clearly plays its part in the problem. The Federal Trade Commission estimates that in 2006, the last year figures were available, food, beverage, and quick-serve restaurant companies spent more than $1.6 billion to promote their products to children. Advertising on television is the dominant form of marketing to kids, comprising almost half of total youth-directed marketing expenditures, according to the FTC.
“We cannot win the battle against childhood obesity as long as we continue to allow the industry to bombard children with ads for foods that they really shouldn’t eat very often,” said Dr. Dale Kunkel of the University of Arizona, who conducted a study on the effectiveness of current programs.
What is the industry doing?
Food and beverage advertising targeted at children influences their dietary preferences and contributes to an environment that puts their health at risk, according to a 2006 report by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.
Before Michelle Obama’s focus on childhood obesity and in response to IOM’s conclusions, the food and beverage industry started a self-regulatory program that year, the Council of Better Business Bureaus’ Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative. It is aimed at reducing unhealthy food advertising to children.
Sixteen of the largest food companies—Kellogg, Coca-Cola, Mars, Cadbury Adams, McDonald’s, Campbell Soup Co., ConAgra Foods, Dannon, General Mills, Kraft Foods, Burger King, Hershey, Post Foods, PepsiCo, Nestle and Unilever—participate. The companies represent a majority, 70 to 80 percent, of the ads kids see on TV, according to Elaine Kolish, the director of the initiative. The organizations have agreed to:
- All television, print, radio, and Web advertising, as well as interactive games, aimed at children must promote “healthier dietary choices” or “better-for-you” products.
- Companies must reduce their use of third-party licensed characters in advertising that does not promote healthy dietary choices or healthy lifestyles.
- Companies must not pay for or actively seek placement of their products in entertainment directed at children.
- No advertising food or beverage products in elementary schools.
It may sound like an effective plan, but the White House task force report points out the blemishes. The FTC reported in 2008 that the companies’ nutritional standards, as well as their definitions of “child-directed,” vary. Each developed its own guidelines for what constitutes a “better for you” or “healthy” food.
“It sounds a lot better than what is actually happening in practice,” said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit based in Washington. “There is still a lot of unhealthy food being marketing to kids.”
Wootan was one of 12 authors of a study that graded the industry’s policies. A majority of the food, beverage and entertainment businesses got a failing grade thanks to poor or nonexistent policies. Many have loopholes and weaknesses, Wootan said. For example, a fast food restaurant may have low sugar standards for what is acceptable to market to kids, but it may have no sodium requirements, allowing it to market things like french fries in somewhat good conscience.
“We found just massive failure across the board,” said Jeff McIntyre, director of national policy of Children Now, which conducted a study that looked specifically at the success of the industry initiative. “It has not addressed the issue. …There is a growing national movement to address this and we need to take a harsher course.”
According to the Corporate Accountability International, which has studied self-regulation initiatives around the world for 30 years, “voluntary initiatives in the U.S have inherent and serious limitations and they are not effective in addressing public health,” said T.J. Faircloth, the research director.
Kunkel, who conducted the Children Now’s study, believes the U.S. should ban advertising to children, as some nations already have.
Lynn agrees: “I would have liked the task force to recommend what they have adopted in Britain, which is no food marketing at all on programming that is geared to children under the age of 16.”
In 2009, advocates pressed Congress to form the Interagency Working Group on Food Marketing to Children, a group of experts from the FTC, FCC, USDA and CDC dedicated to investigating current efforts and coming up with self-regulatory guidelines that could be adopted across the board. The group plans to release potential guidelines, which will be open to public comment, this spring, said Mary Engle, associate director of advertising practices at the FTC.
What about regulation?
The FTC cannot regulate marketing to children. In the 1970s, the FTC attempted to ban advertisements of sugary foods to kids because of an overabundance of cavities, an idea pushed by dentists, Engle said. In response, Congress prohibited the agency’s ability to regulate certain types of advertisements in 1981.
“A regulatory approach is certainly not where we are going to start,” said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz at the White House press conference. “You start by pushing self-regulation… by commending the companies that are really stepping up to the plate and sometimes shaming companies that aren’t doing enough.”
The president of the Snack Foods Association, Jim McCarthy, and spokeswoman for the National Confectioners Association, Susan Smith, also advocate voluntary regulation.
“Industry as a whole always appreciates being able to work with voluntary guidelines,” Smith said. “Regulations are sometimes one size fits all, and this does not work. The idea of the task force is for everybody involved to work together and we’ve recognized our responsibly.”
Many food and beverage companies argue that they are already doing their part to solve the problem.
Mars Inc. received the best grade in Center for Science In the Public Interest’s report card study for cutting advertisements aimed at children under 12-years-old, for putting nutritional values on the front of its packaging and for taking its product out of elementary schools.
“The industry is definitely rallying around us,” said Marlene Machut, a spokeswoman for Mars. “Food manufacturers have a role to play and we want to do what we can to provide a solution.”
Four companies —Coca-Cola Co., Mars, Cadbury Adams USA and Hershey Co – have stopped marketing to children under the age of 12, though they have set their own standards for what advertising to kids means.
“Everyone who has looked at this agrees with us that the companies are honoring their commitments and pledges,” Kolish said. “We are not saying our work is done. We will certainly look at White House task force recommendations and take them into account as we move forward.”
Burger King Co., for example, said in a statement it restricts all advertising aimed at children under 12 for products that do not meet stringent nutrition criteria. They also have transitioned to zero grams of artificial trans fat in all ingredients and cooking oils in U.S. restaurants.
Pamela Bailey, the president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, said in a statement that it has improved the nutritional profile of more than 10,000 of its products to reduce sugar, fats, calories and sodium.
Changing food formulas may be the best solution, since cutting advertising during children’s programming only will make a dent in what kids are exposed to. Half of the food ads children see on television occur on prime-time and other non-child directed programs, according to an FTC study.
The first lady’s task force recommends that entertainment companies do their part by restricting certain advertisements from appearing. But Wootan said that 80 percent of those companies do not have policies in place.
“Entertainment companies are especially absent from self-regulation,” Wootan said. “The ones that do only cover the use of their characters on food packing or in ads, which is a nice little step, but even more importantly they should address television advertising and what is on their website.”
Companies continue to appeal to kids
Kids are especially susceptible to promotions tied to characters from popular movies or TV shows.
Research by the Sesame Street Workshop in 2005 found a strong influence of popular licensed characters on preschoolers’ food preferences. When they were asked if they would rather eat broccoli or a Hershey’s chocolate bar, 78 percent of the children chose the chocolate bar and only 22 percent chose broccoli. When an Elmo sticker was placed on the broccoli, however, 50 percent of the children chose broccoli.
Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity found a 78 percent jump in the number of food products with youth-oriented cross-promotions on packaging between 2006 and 2008. About 75 percent of those cross-promotions involved the use of licensed characters.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon are three examples of entertainment companies that have restricted the use of their licensed characters on unhealthy products, according to company representatives. These companies have also have created ads or public service announcements that use their characters as ambassadors to promote a healthy and active lifestyle.
“I watched my own kids get off the couch as we challenged them to see how many pushups they can do,” said Cartoon Network’s Alice Cahn, vice president of social responsibility. “We have used the power of our entertainment brand to really stress making this a natural part of activities.”
But Children Now’s McIntyre said that’s not enough.
“Viacom, Cartoon Network, Nick, these guys know they can put up a lot of public relations driven efforts, PSAs, no trans fat in fries at amusement parks,” McIntyre said. “It’s a nice thing to restrict the use of licensed characters, but it is just scratching the edges around a really significant problem.”
But of course, the entertainment, food and beverage industry cannot stop the epidemic on its own. The first lady acknowledged it’s a multifaceted problem.
“We don’t need new discoveries or new inventions to reverse this trend. We have the tools to reverse it,” she said. “All we need is the motivation, the opportunity and the willpower to do what needs to be done.”