RODALE NEWS, WASHINGTON, DC—A few weeks ago, we reported how the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had published new guidelines on food marketing to children. Last week, the people who do the marketing responded with a news conference to announce that those guidelines for industry self-regulation are too “sweeping,” “draconian,” inconsistent with other government dietary advice for children, ineffective in reducing childhood obesity, and totally inappropriate, and should be withdrawn.
We’re talking about guidelines, and self-regulation, not federal law. What’s going on here?
“Panic,” says Marion Nestle, PhD, Paulette Goddard Professor in the department of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University, and author of several popular books about food and food politics, including What to Eat.
“Food companies have gotten away with murder for decades," she says. "They must be in a panic because if they apply the criteria in the guidelines, a lot of their products wouldn’t qualify for advertising to children.”
At the news conference, the Grocery Manufacturers of America (GMA), standing in for just about anyone who manufactures or sells food—grocers, bakers, yogurt makers, beverage manufacturers—offered no concrete evidence to back up their claims against the Preliminary Proposed Nutrition Principles to Guide Industry Self Regulation that was written by an interagency working group made up of appointees from the FTC, Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2009, Congress asked the group to produce the guidelines, in order to urge the food industry to significantly reduce saturated fat, trans fat, added sugars, and sodium, and market healthier products to children.
Here are the food industry's reasons for rejecting the guidelines…and rebuttals by Nestle and by Kelly Brownell, PhD, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University.
The argument: Advertising does not contribute to childhood obesity.
The GMA says: The proposal is not based on good science. There is no evidence linking advertising to obesity. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies of Science said in 2005 it could not find a causal connection between advertising and obesity.
Brownell says: "The Institute of Medicine did find causal connection, but not for every age group. For the [food] industry to say otherwise is crazy. The IOM was very cautious, but said there was a link in some age groups. The report starts with the following sentence: 'Marketing works.' The science linking food marketing to unhealthy eating is rock-solid. The IOM, the American Psychological Association, and authoritative reviews all over the place conclude marketing is driving what kids want and what kids eat; and how could it be otherwise? Industry would not spend all that money if it were not working."
Nestle says: "All you have to do is look at a 12-year-old in the supermarket to know it works extraordinarily well. Parents are fighting with kids all the time because kids want the advertised products. It’s very subversive of parental authority and personal responsibility."
"By now the evidence on [the health impact of] fast foods and soda is beginning to look like evidence we had with cigarettes."
The argument: The new guidelines conflict with ones we already have.
GMA: The proposals in the guidelines are inconsistent with, and in some cases, more restrictive than, those for school meals, the 2010 Dietary Guidelines, and WIC. [Note: WIC is a feeding program for low-income women, infants, and children.]
Nestle: "It’s quite possible that the new regulations conflict with school meal and WIC standards, but those need to be changed to make them stronger. I don’t think they conflict with Dietary Guidelines."
The argument: Ads targeting kids are already disappearing from TV.
GMA: Advertising to children has dropped significantly in broadcast media.
Nestle: “There is enormous concern in the advocacy community because the advertising is moving online, into entertainment, movies, absolutely everywhere. You can’t get away from it.”
Brownell: "Marketers are coming up with new methods for advertising to kids: cellphones, Internet.”
The argument: This is a federal government power-grab.
GMA: The proposals are “clearly a backdoor effort to regulate.”
Nestle: "What’s wrong with telling them not to market to kids? It’s not a backdoor effort to regulation. We need regulations. I think it’s time for marketers to take a little responsibility."
“Marketing to children is unethical because kids are not capable of distinguishing between content and advertising. And while there is some evidence that kids over 12 are capable, there is also quite a bit of evidence adolescents have trouble with it, too.”
Nestle: “The Federal Trade Commission [in charge of ad regulation] is trying to make it easier for parents to exercise parental authority, and that’s a good thing for government to do.”
And, she adds, anyone who doesn’t believe the handwriting is on the wall for regulation “should be reading the history of cigarette regulations.”