The GMA was responding to an critical report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) that said most food companies “get failing grades” for their policies around food marketing to children.
CSPI nutrition policy director Margo Wootan said: “Despite the industry’s self-regulatory system, the vast majority of food and entertainment companies have no protections in place for children. If companies were marketing bananas and broccoli, we wouldn’t be concerned. But instead, most of the marketing is for sugary cereals, fast food, snack foods, and candy. And this junk food marketing is a major contributor to childhood obesity.”
The CSPI said that even food companies that have joined the industry self-regulatory program, the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, have carefully tailored standards that still allow junk foods to be advertised to children.
The GMA rejected the allegations.
The association’s vice president of federal affairs Scott Faber said: “The food and beverage industry has already changed the recipes of more than 10,000 products to reduce calories, sugar, sodium, and fat. We are working with experts at FDA and USDA to design new labels that make information about calories and nutrition facts clearer for busy parents. And, we have changed the way we advertise our products during children’s programming.
“Because our industry has applied nutrition standards to our advertising seen during children’s programming, two-thirds of advertisements viewed on children’s programming now feature healthy food and active lifestyles.”
The GMA said this was one finding of a Georgetown Economic Services study that also claimed children were seeing 31 percent fewer advertisements for foods, beverages and restaurants on television in 2008 than they were in 2004.