Of all the factors that are associated with childhood obesity, food marketing remains one of the most contentious.  For public health and children’s media advocates who have worked on this issue for several years, a main concern has been to clarify what constitutes a “healthy” product from an “unhealthy” product. On the surface, this seems a very straightforward question that, unfortunately, for parents and caregivers, continues to have an elusive answer.

In 2005, the food and beverage industry announced a voluntary self-regulatory program to modify its marketing of products targeting children. Advocates became concerned when the industry coined the term “better-for-you” to guide which products would be marketed to children. Here’s how 12 different companies participating in this program currently define the term for their product portfolio.

Perhaps of greater concern – aside from determining what is truly better for your child amongst 12 different nutrition standards – is when you compare the nutritional quality of these “better-for-you” products against a framework designed to help parents make healthier choices for their children and families.  In 2009, Children Now commissioned and released such a study, The Impact of Industry Self-Regulation on the Nutritional Quality of Foods Advertised on Television to Children, which evaluated whether and to what extent this self-regulatory industry program, the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, has improved the nutritional quality of foods and beverages marketed to children.

It may be of no surprise to you that the study found the majority of advertisements from companies participating in initiative are for nutritionally poor products. More than two-thirds (68.5%) of all advertising by participating companies for foods and beverages in the lowest category of nutritional quality according to the Department of Health and Human Services’ food rating system known as “Go-Slow-Whoa.”  Further, healthy food advertising for products such as vegetables, fruits, and whole grain breads were virtually invisible, accounting for less than 1% of all advertising.

In late 2008, Congress tasked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to create an Interagency Task Force to create a voluntary uniform nutrition standard for marketing foods and beverages that would be applied to children’s media. This is a critical piece to provide parents and caregivers with information about what is “healthy” versus “better-for-you.”  The FTC was to have released this standard for public comment in January 2010 with a final report to Congress submitted in July 2010.  Both deadlines have passed and we are still waiting.

If the standard is not released in the next several weeks, we are planning to submit a letter to the Federal Trade Commission.  If childhood obesity is of concern to you, then I hope you will consider joining our campaign to do everything we can to reduce children’s exposure to unhealthy food marketing.