by Justin Prochnow
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declared American society has become “obesogenic.” Obesity rates continue to climb and the outcry has increased similarly from public interest groups, such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and others, for government solutions to the obesity problem. Whether as a result of recommendations made by President Obama’s White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity or through nutritional standards proposed by the Interagency Taskforce on Food Marketed to Children, the marketing of food to children is an area that has received increased consideration in the quest to solve the obesity dilemma. Such attention has placed additional pressure on FTC, the governmental agency tasked with regulating advertising, to further intensify its regulation of advertisements marketing food to children. For companies in the food and beverage industries, this heightened scrutiny means all claims made for products marketed to children must be carefully evaluated to ensure strict compliance, and to avoid FTC enforcement action.
Movement at the White House
While FTC and other organizations have been increasing their focus on advertisements marketing food to children over the past year or two, the marketing of food products to children garnered special attention at the highest levels of the federal government in 2010. In February, first lady Michelle Obama launched her effort to address the childhood obesity epidemic with the Let’s Move! campaign. Its goal is to solve the problem of childhood obesity within a generation so children born today will reach adulthood at a healthy weight. After the launch of the Let’s Move! campaign, President Obama complemented the campaign by creating the first-ever Task Force on Childhood Obesity to help develop a national action plan to maximize federal resources and assist the Let’s Move! campaign in reaching its goal.
In May 2010, the Task Force released its report outlining an action plan for combating childhood obesity. The Task Force Report presented a series of 70 recommendations for addressing the problems of childhood obesity, including providing healthy food in schools, motivating children to be more physically active and imploring federal agencies to implement additional programs. Specifically, pages 28 to 32 of the Task Force Report address the issue of food marketing, declaring the marketing of food to children and adolescents to be “big business” and emphasizing, “the marketing of food products can also be a powerful tool to drive the purchase of healthy products, and to communicate important information about healthy eating choices.” While FTC is charged with monitoring and evaluating the progress made in marketing efforts that are meant to help reduce childhood obesity, the Task Force Report also includes a handful of recommendations for industry companies, such as extending self-regulation programs to cover all forms of marketing, and limiting the licensing of popular characters to food and beverage products that are healthy. The Task Force Report makes it clear that, moving forward, an increased emphasis will be placed on the need for the food and beverage industry to assist federal agencies, such as FTC, in policing the marketing of food to children.
