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This post was written by John P. Feldman and Michael L. Sacks.

The Interagency Working Group of Food Marketed to Children (“Working Group”) today has requested comments on proposed nutritional principles that it hopes will help in the fight against childhood obesity. The Working Group, established in 2009 by the FTC, FDA, CDC, and USDA at Congress’s request, hopes that by 2016 industry actors will meet its two-pronged self-regulatory vision: a marketing environment in which advertisers encourage kids to choose foods that make for a healthy diet; and a production environment in which food companies will police limits on the fat, sugar, and sodium content of their products marketed to kids.

In formulating its principles, the Working Group set its sights on the most heavily marketed foods to children and adolescents, ages 2-17: breakfast cereals, snack foods, candy, dairy products, baked goods, carbonated beverages, fruit juice and non-carbonated beverages, prepared foods and meals, frozen and chilled desserts, and restaurant foods. In a press release, the Association of National Advertisers, calling the proposals “sweeping” and “overly restrictive,” criticized the Working Group for inappropriately “treating teenagers as if they were young children” and employing “limited and outdated” data.

Despite these differences, the Working Group and Food Marketers can agree that these voluntary proposed principles respect industry’s preference for and progress in its self-regulatory efforts to keep our kids healthy.

Action item? Take time now to determine just how divorced from business reality these principles are for your company. If they end up suggesting that a formulation tweak would be all that it takes to be a poster child for the Working Group then go for it. If they suggest to you that it will be impossible or very costly to reformulate then get set to comment. Objective, quantifiable data is needed to make your comment useful. So, do the analysis as soon as possible and let's see if what they're imagining has any semblance of reason.

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This post was written by Peter Le Guay, Partner at Thomson Playford Cutlers.

The Initiative

Childhood obesity has become a major public health issue in Australia with evidence showing that excessive consumption of foods high in fat, sugar and salt is a major contributor to childhood obesity.

One of the most recent steps implemented to combat childhood obesity is the Quick Service Restaurant Initiative for Responsible Advertising and Marketing to Children (“Initiative”) developed by the Australian Association of National Advertisers (“AANA”) in conjunction with a number of fast food companies in Australia.

The Initiative, a self-regulatory scheme, commenced on 1 August 2009 and covers fast food ads run during children’s television viewing times as well as internet sites and computer games targeting children.

The aim of the Initiative is to ensure that only food and/or beverages that represent healthier choices are promoted directly to children (defined as being persons under the age of 14 years) and to ensure that parents or guardians can make informed product choices for their children.

The Initiative requires signatories to ensure that advertising or marketing to children for food and/or beverages represents:

(a)   healthier choices as determined by a defined set of nutritional criteria (being new sugar, salt and fat limits prepared in consultation with dieticians); and
(b)   a healthy lifestyle designed to appeal to the audience through messaging which encourages healthier choices and physical activity.

In addition, signatories must:

• not engage in product related communication in Australian schools except where specifically requested or agreed to with the school administration;
• not use popular personalities or licensed characters to promote food or beverage products to children unless that communication complies with (a) and (b) above;
• not advertise premium offers in any medium directed to children; and
• ensure that nutritional information is provided on packaging wherever possible including on company websites or upon request.

Major fast food companies such as McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, Hungry Jack’s, Oporto, Red Rooster and Chicken Treat have supported the Initiative. However, other major fast food companies such as Nandos and Dominos Pizza are yet to sign.

Complaints in relation to alleged breaches of the Initiative can be made in writing to the Advertising Standards Bureau.

In addition to adhering to the specific rules set out in the Initiative, signatories are also required to abide by the following Codes of the AANA:

1.      AANA Code for Advertising & Marketing Communications to Children

The object of this Code is to ensure that advertisers and marketers develop and maintain a high sense of social responsibility in advertising and marketing to children in Australia. The Code contains, among other things, a prohibition on the sexualisation of children (defined as being a person aged 14 years or younger) or using sexual imagery in advertising/marketing to children that is contrary to prevailing community standards, as well as a prohibition on the portrayal of unsafe situations or unsafe use of products which may encourage children to engage in dangerous activities.

2.      AANA Food and Beverages Advertising & Marketing Communications Code

The object of this Code is to ensure that advertisers and marketers develop and maintain a high sense of social responsibility in advertising and marketing food and beverage products in Australia. The Code states, among other things, that advertising/marketing to children (defined as being 14 years or younger) must be designed and delivered in a manner to be understood by those children and shall not mislead or deceive in relation to any nutritional or health claims. Also, such communications must not state or imply that possession of or use of a food or beverage product will provide physical, social or psychological advantage over other children and shall not include any “pester power” appeal to children to urge adults responsible for their welfare to buy a particular food or beverage item for them.

3.      AANA Code of Ethics

The object of this Code is to ensure that advertisements are legal, decent, honest and truthful and that they have been prepared with a sense of obligation to the consumer and society and a fair sense of responsibility tocompetitors.

The Initiative follows recent changes to the new Children’s Television Standards (2009) which come into effect on 1 January 2010. Details of the 2009 Standards are set out below.

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A ban on fast-food advertising in the United States could reduce the number of overweight children by as much as 18 percent, according to a study conducted for the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, is being published in the University of Chicago's Journal of Law and Economics. Led by a professor from Lehigh University, researchers measured the number of hours of fast-food television advertising messages viewed by children on a weekly basis.

Lehigh University Professor Shin-Yi-Chou and her colleagues found that a ban on fast food advertisements during children's programming would reduce the number of overweight children aged 3-11 by 18 percent, and lower the number of overweight adolescents aged 12-18 by 14 percent.

Though the researchers concluded an advertising ban would be an effective method of reducing the number of overweight children, they also questioned whether such onerous government involvement and the costs of implementing such policies made an advertising ban a practical option in the United States.

Access information regarding the study at journals.uchicago.edu and lehigh.edu.

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Children who are obese or who have high cholesterol also show early signs of heart disease, according to a new study. Results of the study were unveiled at a recent American Heart Association conference. The study, conducted by researchers from the University of Missouri Kansas City School of Medicine, has not yet been published.

The study was small, involving 70 children ages 6 to 19, and experts said the results would need to be replicated to be considered conclusive. But the researchers' method of measuring artery wall thickness, using ultrasound technology, is considered to be a reliable indicator of heart disease risk.

"I think this is a red flag," said the study's lead author, Dr. Geetha Raghuveer, a cardiologist and associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Missouri Kansas City School of Medicine. "These kids are more similar to middle-aged adults."

The study is considered by many to be part of a growing body of research that childhood obesity in the United States likely will result in increased incidents of heart disease as children age.
 
Read more about the study and surrounding issues at nytimes.com.

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Between 500 and 600 U.S. school districts have instituted nutritional policies limiting foods deemed to be high in fat, salt and sugar. That's according to a research scientist at the Institute for Health Research and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The widespread curbing of snacks in school has some kids pining for the old days.

"I know obesity is a big problem, and it's good the school cares," high school senior Sam Cardoza told The New York Times recently. "At the same time, you shouldn't stop a kid from buying a cookie."

California's nutrition standards limit snacks sold in schools during the day to those that contain no more than 35 percent sugar, and that derive no more than 35 percent of their calories from fat. Sodas will be banned from schools beginning next year. Regulations such as those being implemented in California have brought traditions such as school bake sales and birthday celebrations to a screeching halt.

"I don't think all celebrations need to be around food," said Ann Cooper, the director of nutrition services for the Berkley School District. "We need to get past the mentality of food used for punishment or praise."

The reduction in calories at school does not mean, as some feared, that kids would rush home and raid the fridge. According to the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale, children do not compensate for the loss of sugar and fat-laden foods at school by increasing their intake of such goodies at home.

"People really do eat what's in front of them," explained center Deputy Director Marlene B. Schwartz.

Read more about the issue at nytimes.com.

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Just before the market melt-down captured the attention of Congress, a subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee held the latest in what has become a series of hearings on the state of food marketing to children and its links to the obesity epidemic.

In testimony that reads much like students reporting on the progress of long-term research assignments, the various constituencies-regulators, industry representatives and advocates-weighed in. Presiding was Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who convened the public-private Joint Task Force on Media and Childhood Obesity, and who chairs the Appropriations subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies.

In testimony that mirrored a report submitted to the subcommittee in July, Federal Trade Commission Commissioner Jon Leibowitz cited with approval the food industry's self-regulatory efforts through an initiative established by the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB). Under the CBBB initiative, participating companies develop individual pledges to limit their advertising to young children to healthier foods.

"Under the right circumstances, industry-generated solutions have the potential to address a public health problem of this magnitude quickly, creatively, and flexibly," Commissioner Leibowitz stated.

However, Patti Miller, Vice President of Children Now, disagreed as to the effectiveness of the CBBB initiative. "The initiative is insufficient for three main reasons," she stated. She cited the lack of uniform nutritional standards defining healthier foods and beverages, a "loop hole" that allows companies to advertise "better for you" foods that contain reduced amounts of sugar and fat, but are nonetheless not healthy, and the lack of participation by media companies.

Some media companies have taken steps to limit advertising to healthier foods, restrict licensing of their popular kids' characters to healthier foods, and provide healthy lifestyle messaging, testified Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin J. Martin.

Nonetheless, Chairman Martin also pronounced himself "disappointed in those media companies [that have] made no solid commitments in these areas." He cited the UK's communications authority, Ofcom, which has banned advertising of high fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) foods and beverages to children on children's television channels.

"While it was-and always is-my hope that we will not have to resort to actual requirements, and I strongly encouraged the media companies to propose some voluntary limitations on advertising targeting our children, in the end no widespread voluntary commitment on behalf of the media industry was forthcoming," he said.

Access the hearing testimony at appropriations.senate.gov.  

Read more about the issue at startribune.com.  

Read previous KidAdLaw coverage about the FTC's food marketing report. 

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