Children's food and beverage initiative

The Children's Food and Beverage Advertising (CFBA) Initiative is a cornerstone of the industry's self-regulatory efforts.

About 15 companies have submitted voluntary pledges to the Initiative. Some major nonparticipants include Yum Brands (including Taco Bell and Pizza Hut) and Cadbury Schweppes (including soft drinks such as Dr. Pepper and Snapple). Because perhaps 1/3 of all food advertising is by nonparticipating companies, competitive pressure could harm companies that voluntarily try to make real substantial improvements.

The Initiative has fairly lenient minimum standards for the pledges, though some companies exceed the minimum standards voluntarily. The Initiative's standards say 50% of the company's "advertising aimed at children under 12 years of age" must "further the goal of promoting healthy dietary choices and healthy lifestyles." This standard can be achieved either by accompanying the marketing message with physical activity messages, or by advertising foods that qualify as "better for you."

It is not clear that physical activity advertising really counterbalances advertising for unhealthy foods. New research published last month in the journal Obesity found that activity messaging can have the paradoxical effect of increasing food consumption. People who see these messages seem to behave as if they were hungry after exercise ... but without the actual exercise.

The standards for foods that qualify as "better-for-you" frequently have an "either/or" character that makes them easy to meet. For example, a product can be low in sugar, or low in fat, or low in salt, but it need not meet all of these criteria together. Foods on the list of "better-for-you" items that pass muster with the Initiative include: Lunchables Max’d Out Pepperoni Pizza, Cap'n Crunch, and Gatorade Thirst Quenchers (which are said to be "better-for-you" despite getting all their calories from sugar because they provide a rehydration benefit).

The companies choose their own standards for defining "advertising toward children under age 12." Here are some examples from my recent review:

Only two pledges use the same standard as the 2008 FTC report, which stipulated settings where more than 30% of the audience is children under the age of 12 years. Some pledges use a lenient standard of 50% of the audience. The definitions in other pledges are so imprecise and complex that it is difficult to determine what advertising is covered. The Campbell Soup Company proposed the following standard: “audience composition that is approximately two times the proportion of that age group in the general population (composition index of 200 or more)”. Pepsico listed five different non-quantitative factors, specifying “none of which shall be controlling."

The Future of Food and Nutrition - Graduate Student Research Conference

Register today to receive the $25 rate for the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy's Future of Food and Nutrition Student Research Conference. The conference will be held Saturday, March 28, from 9am-5pm at the Jaharis Building in downtown Boston.

Click here to register. Registration includes admission to all conference sessions, breakfast, lunch, and coffee breaks.

The conference will feature oral and poster presentations from 35 students – including several Tufts students - doing research in the fields of food policy, public health, agriculture, nutrition, and anthropology. Click here full event schedule.

In addition, the conference will culminate with an exciting expert panel discussion entitled "New Approaches to Feeding the World," moderated by our own Parke Wilde and featuring:

Mark Winne- Mark currently writes, speaks, and consults extensively on community food system topics including hunger and food insecurity, local and regional agriculture, community food assessment, and food policy. He also does policy communication and food policy council work for the Community Food Security Coalition. His first book "Closing the Food Gap — Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty", published by Beacon Press, will be available for purchase at the event.

Susan Roberts- As a consultant, writer and speaker on food systems Ms. Roberts takes scientific information and translates it into policy applications linking public health, food, agriculture and food security. Recently Ms. Roberts directed the WK Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Policy Fellows Program where national fellows used media to influence food systems, agriculture and health thinking and policy.

Robert Paarlberg- His latest book, titled "Starved for Science: How Biotechnology is Being Kept Out of Africa," was published by Harvard University Press in March 2008. He is currently senior consultant to a Chicago Council on Global Affairs bipartisan study group on the future of U.S. agricultural development assistance policy. He has published books on agricultural trade and U.S. foreign policy, on international agricultural trade negotiations, on environmentally sustainable farming in developing countries, on U.S. foreign economic policy, on the reform of U.S. agricultural policy, and on policies toward genetically modified crops in developing countries.

We hope to see you there!

Sincerely,
The Future of Food and Nutrition Steering Committee
http://studentconference.nutrition.tufts.edu

Robert Kenner's new movie: Food, Inc.

Marion Nestle went to a press screening of Food, Inc., and reported:

It’s a terrific introduction to the way our food system works and to the effects of this system on the health of anyone who eats as well as of farm workers, farm animals, and the planet. It stars Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan, among others, but I was especially moved by Barbara Kowalcyk, the eloquent and forceful food safety advocate who lost a young son to E. coli O17:H7 some years ago. I can’t wait for the film to come out so everyone can see it. I will use it in classes, not least because it’s such an inspiring call to action.

Self-regulation of food marketing to children

Food and beverage industry self-regulation is commonly seen as mere window dressing for doing nothing about intense food and beverage marketing to children in the midst of an epidemic of childhood obesity.

Yet, many economists support government interventions to address the problem only if they are narrowly tailored to solve "market failures" -- situations where the market system fails to serve the public interest. If the market's own response suffices, it may be preferable to the government response.

And, many legal experts like restrictions on advertising only if the restrictions are narrowly tailored to be "no more extensive than necessary."

Of course, companies themselves prefer self-regulation.

With these multiple sources of support, the federal government has determined to attempt a period of self-regulation.

The questions that interest me most are: (1) how will this period of self-regulation be evaluated?; and (2) if the self-regulation fails, will the economists and legal experts follow the logic of their own arguments and support a stronger government response?

My longer version of this discussion has just been published in Nutrition Reviews (contact me by email if your library lacks access).

Is organic safer?

Kim Severson and Andrew Martin take up this question in the New York Times this morning.

Although the rules governing organic food require health inspections and pest-management plans, organic certification technically has nothing to do with food safety.

“Because there are some increased health benefits with organics, people extrapolate that it’s safer in terms of pathogens,” said Urvashi Rangan, a senior scientist and policy analyst with Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports. “I wouldn’t necessarily assume it is safer.”

But many people who pay as much as 50 percent more for organic food think it ought to be.

Now that organic food is a big industry, with big companies on a national scale, the distinction between organic food and conventional food should be understood precisely as the list of food qualities protected by the federal government's official definition of organic. This list includes a restricted menu of permitted pesticides, no GMOs, and several other qualities that are important to many consumers. Because increased pathogen monitoring is not one of the elements of the official definition, I would expect modest but not dramatic food safety advantages from food certified as organic.

Revisiting The Lorax: a tribute to Dr. Seuss

Theodore Seuss Geisel, pen name 'Dr. Seuss,' was born on March 2, 1904 in Springfield Massachusetts which would make today his 105th birthday. While I enjoyed many of his 60 published children's books as a child, (Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish), it was not until I was older that I truly appreciated the charm of Dr. Seuss.

In 1971, Dr. Seuss wrote the infamous children's classic The Lorax, that according to Wikipedia:

"chronicles the plight of the environment and the Lorax (a mossy, bossy man-like creature), who speaks for the trees against the greedy Once-ler (industry)."

The tale is a major environmental fable that speaks of the destruction of the environment through the eyes of the Lorax, who is the protector of the Truffula trees. The Lorax watches on in sadness as his home and habitat get destroyed by an industrial business. As the business continues to pillage the environment, killing the plants and animals and leaving a polluted wasteland, the Once-ler comes to his senses, realizing his gaffe. Once-ler is now at the mercy of the Lorax to restore the beauty and sustainability to the land by replanting the last-ever Truffula seed.



This theme is ever so common in our world today as we are realizing the limitations of extracting limited resources with no consideration for the future or respect to the inner workings of the natural world. It was also a markable theme in the book Dust Bowl, The Southern Plains in the 1930s by Donald Worster, who argued that the enemy at work is rampant, unfettered capitalism. As industry has taken heed to the trend of sustainability, will they truly take environmental factors into consideration at the expense of their bottom line? Or will strong advertising and marketing campaigns be able to continue pull the wool over the eyes of the consumer in what is now termed 'green washing.'

Happy birthday to Dr. Seuss and an admiring salute to your works. Maybe we can celebrate with a movie viewing and some green eggs and ham. Here are some of my favorite quotes:

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.”

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.”

“And the turtles, of course... All the turtles are free- As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.”

Cross posted from Epicurean Ideal.

Rudd report on soft drink taxes

The Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity has a very timely report on soft drink taxes (.pdf).

An engaging section at the end offers point-by-point contrasts between what "opponents" and "proponents" say about soft drink taxes. Here are some examples and my comments on them.

Opponents say:
Soft drink taxes are regressive. They will disproportionately hurt the poor and minorities who spend a larger proportion of their income on food.

Proponents say:
Soft drink taxes have the potential to be most beneficial to low-income people, who:
-- may currently consume more soft drinks;
-- may be more sensitive to higher prices and therefore stand to benefit most from reducing consumption.

This is especially true if the revenues are used for programs that
will benefit the poor, or for subsidies on healthier foods which can
offset concerns that the tax is regressive.

While everyone must eat, sugared beverages are not a necessary
part of the diet and generally deliver many calories with little or no
nutrition.

To make the proponents' point even more broadly, it is good public policy to expect the tax system as a whole to be progressive, but it would be bad policy to expect every disaggregated sales tax to be progressive.

Opponents say:
The government should stay out of private behavior. It should not try to regulate what people eat or drink.

Proponents say:
The government is already deeply involved in what we eat, from farm subsidies to setting nutritional standards for school meals. Historically, major government interventions have been successful in improving and protecting the public’s health. Examples include smoking restrictions and tobacco taxes, mandated seat belt usage, fluoridated water, and vaccinations.

It is true that government interventions can promote the public interest. However, on this question about personal food and beverage choices, I'd encourage the proponents to listen very carefully to the opponents' concern. The proponents should spend more ink calling for reforms to misdirected government policies (such as subsidies for inputs to corn sweeteners) than calling for taxes to change public behavior. Public policy to address obesity wins more public agreement when the public strongly senses a heartfelt deference to consumers' own preferences.

Here is a rhetorical argument that proponents can pursue in states where sales taxes are lower for groceries than for other goods: "Soft drinks should be taxed fairly, just like all other consumer goods subject to sales tax. Soft drinks should not be taxed using the special lower tax rate for food necessities. This policy reform does not tell consumers what to do. It merely puts soft drinks in the appropriate category of goods subject to sales tax." In such states, proponents should never get caught in a sound bite that makes them seem more eager to direct consumer choices.

Opponents say:
Soft drink taxes can’t be compared to cigarette and alcohol taxes. The use of tobacco and alcohol can have adverse consequences for non-users (for example, second hand smoke, and drunk driving accidents, called “negative externalities”). This is not true for soft drink consumption.

Proponents say:
Obesity also has negative externalities which affect us all. Among them are significant overall health care costs, including higher medical, disability, and insurance premium costs. For example, obesity-related medical expenditures were estimated in 2002 to be $92 billion, half of which were paid for with taxpayer dollars through Medicaid and Medicare.

The proponents, here, have chosen an argument that may be too broad to win public agreement. By the same argument about shared insurance risk pools, one could justify fairly severe government interventions to influence personal choices that affect health. Contrast this argument with the much stronger public appeal of policies to protect children from soft drink sales and marketing in schools.

At the end of the day, I'd support much stronger public policies to address soft drink consumption and obesity, but the proponents' arguments in this report could be strengthened with some pruning.