Government moves to regulate food advertising to teens
Currently food manufacturers are required to adhere to industry-imposed rules for food advertising to children under the age of 12, but the ‘Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children’ has been set up to look at food marketed to all under-18s.
The study was announced alongside the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Bill, signed by Barack Obama on Wednesday, together with calls for a number of government studies, including one to examine whether the government needs to set standards on how foods are marketed to children.
However, the government’s involvement in the hitherto self-regulated area has been met with criticism.
Spokesperson for the Grocery Manufacturers Association Scott Openshaw was quoted by Advertising Age as saying: “This proposal is completely unnecessary…Taxpayer dollars and agency time could be made much better use of. Besides, the proposal – the way it is written – not only reinvents the wheel, it does so poorly with broad, misdirected language that goes far beyond marketing to children. Too far.”
Openshaw told FoodNavigator-USA.com that the GMA’s position has not changed since then.
The study is said to be in response to rising levels of childhood obesity in the US, and recent research detailing how food advertising targeting children affects what they eat.
Senator backs industry
However, Senator Sam Brownback made a statement in the Senate on Tuesday urging the new group to look at current measures being taken by industry to reduce advertising of unhealthy foods to children “before they implement the remainder of the directive.”
He was also critical of expanding advertising guidelines to include older children, saying: “Consistent with the current focus of self-regulatory initiatives, I think it would be more appropriate to limit the scope of the working group activities to children under the age of 12.”
Despite Senator Brownback’s comments, the report’s wording remains the same.
The study will bring together the Federal Trade Commission, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Secretary of Agriculture to investigate the situation, and the group is required to report its findings in July 2010.
