Fighting Junk Food Marketing to Kids: a toolkit for advocates doc

Why we developed this toolkit, how you can use it 2 Food and Beverage Marketing: Targeting our kidsUnhealthy foods are hurting our kids Kids’ purchasing powerFood ads target kidsMost foo

Fighting Junk Food Marketing to Kids:

a toolkit for advocates

Fighting Junk Food Marketing to Kids:

a toolkit for advocates

Berkeley Media Studies Group

Why we developed this toolkit, how you can use it

2 Food and Beverage Marketing: Targeting our kidsUnhealthy foods are hurting our kids

Kids’ purchasing powerFood ads target kidsMost food ads are for unhealthy foodsEthnic target marketing: it’s worse for communities of color

3 Marketing: More than just advertising

ProductPlacePromotionPrice

4 Solutions: What can local communities do?

ProductPlacePromotionPrice

5 Discussion Guide, Activities, and Worksheets

Video Discussion Guide

Including questions on the problem and possible solutions,for advocates, parents and youth

Sample letter to a merchant

Sample letter to an after-school program

6 Talking Points and Q&A

Fighting Junk Food Marketing to Kids | bmsg.org 4

Introduction

Imagine, if you will, a big pile of money Let’s call it a million dollars.It’s all yours to spend, any way you want What would you buy?Didn’t take long to spend that money, did it? Well, lucky for you,

an hour later you get another million to spend Now what would you

do with that money? How about if you got another million dollars anhour later — and kept it up around the clock, all year long?

Well, now imagine that deluge of money aimed right at our kids

— spent convincing them to eat and drink MORE MORE MORE ofthe foods and beverages that are least healthy for them That’s howmuch money the food and beverage industry in the U.S spends toreach our children with their messages: one million dollars an hour,every hour of every day, targeted at children and youth It adds up

to $10 to $12 billion dollars a year spent on youth marketing alone

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It’s natural to feel overwhelmed by this amount of marketing —but in fact, there are many things that local groups can do, in theirown communities, to limit marketing and counter its effect

We developed this toolkit to help community advocates stand how food marketing affects kids’ health and what they can doabout it at the local level This toolkit is designed to be used in con-

under-junction with our video, Fighting Junk Food Marketing to Kids, which

illustrates community-based actions to address marketing We hopeyou will use this notebook and the video as community organizingtools to stimulate local advocacy for policies that limit the impact offood and beverage marketing to kids The activities and discussionguides included here will help you use the toolkit to discuss market-ing and what your community can do about it in many settings:

Prevention Institute Public Health InstitutePublic Health Law ProgramSamuels and AssociatesStrategic Alliance

We especially appreciate the excellent work of the California

Pan-Ethnic Health Network and Consumers Union, and their report Out

of Balance: Marketing of Soda, Candy, Snacks and Fast Foods Drowns Out Healthful Messages (September 2005), which con-

tributed to the conception of this toolkit

We thank the Public Health Law Program for helping us understandthe legal implications of various strategies to combat marketing Wethank Prevention Institute and Strategic Alliance for allowing us touse some of their Rapid Response Network talking points in thistoolkit

We dedicate this toolkit to the local advocates in HEAC communitiesacross California who are making their communities places wherehealthy eating and active living are the natural thing to do:

Baldwin ParkChula VistaOaklandSanta AnaShastaSouth Los Angeles

Katie Woodruff, MPH

Berkeley Media Studies Group

Berkeley, California

www.bmsg.org August 2006

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Fighting Junk Food Marketing to Kids | bmsg.org 8

Food and Beverage Marketing: Targeting our kids

Unhealthy foods are hurting our kids

Kids’ purchasing power

Food ads target kids

Most food ads are for unhealthy foods

Ethnic target marketing: it’s worse for communities of color

2 Food and Beverage Marketing:

Targeting our kids

Unhealthy foods are hurting our kids:

Since 1980, overweight rates have doubled among children andtripled among adolescents.1More than one out of every three U.S.children born in 2000 is expected to get diabetes in their lifetime.2

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Statistics, Prevalence of Overweight

Among Children and Adolescents:

United States, 1999-2002, available at

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/

products/pubs/pubd/hestats/

overwght99.htm

Disease Prevention and Health

Promotion, Diabetes Public Health

Resource, CDC Statements on

Diabetes Issues, http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/news/

docs/lifetime.htm

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KidsMedia: Physical Activity and Youth,” available at

http://www.cdc.gov/kidsmedia/ background.htm Cited in Linn S,

Consuming Kids, Anchor Books, New

York, 2004.

Youth-Onset Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus on Incidence of End-Stage Renal Disease and Mortality in Young and Middle-

Aged Pima Indians,” Journal of the American Medical Association,

296:421-426, July 26, 2006.

decline in life expectancy in the United

England Journal of Medicine,

352:1138-1145, March 17, 2005

Carroll MD, Curtin LR, Flegal KM,

“Prevalence of overweight and obesity among US children, adolescents and adults 199-2002,” JAMA, 2004; 291: 2847-2850.

Candy, Snacks and Fast Foods Drowns Out Healthful Messages CPEHN and

Consumers Union report, September 2005.

Over 25 Years in the Dietary Intakes of Children 6-19 years” (April 2005), cour- tesy of author Rhonda Sebastian, cited

in Out of Balance: Marketing of Soda, Candy, Snacks and Fast Foods Drowns Out Healthful Messages CPEHN and

Consumers Union report, September 2005.

drinks are harming Americans’ health Washington, DC: Center for Science in the Public Interest; 2005.

http://www.cspinet.org/liquidcandy/

consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks and childhood obesity: A prospective, observational analysis,”

Lancet 357:505-508, 2001.

decreasing sugar-sweetened beverage consumption on body weight in adoles- cents: a randomized, controlled pilot

study Pediatrics 2006;117:673-80.

According to the CDC, among overweight children between 5

and 10 years of age, 60 percent already have at least one

cardio-vascular disease risk factor that can lead to atherosclerosis,

hyper-tension, and diabetes in adulthood.3

This is particularly critical because, as a recent study

con-firmed, development of Type 2 diabetes before age 20 leads to a

high risk of kidney disease and death by middle age.4Today’s

gen-eration of children is the first in modern history that is expected to

have shorter life spans than their parents, due to the chronic

dis-eases associated with poor nutrition, inactivity and obesity.5

People of color in the U.S disproportionately suffer from

obesi-ty, overweight, and chronic illnesses such as diabetes and

cardio-vascular disease The disparity is especially true in children:

28.2% of white children age 6-19 are overweight or at risk

for overweight;

35.4% of black children are overweight or at risk;

39.9% of Mexican-American children are overweight or at

risk 6

Consumption of foods high in calories, fat and sugars, such as

sodas, fast food, packaged snack foods and desserts, accounts for

much of the increase in overweight among children Nearly 20% of

caloric intake among 12-to-18 year olds comes from fast food,

com-pared with 6.5% in the late 1970s.7In 2002, soda composed 50%

of the total beverage intake for kids aged 12-19, a 58.5% increase

since 1977, while milk consumption decreased nearly 9% for teens

and more than 20% for children aged 6-11.8At the start of the

twenty-first century, the average teenage boy in the U.S consumed

two cans of soda a day, and teenage girls drank a little more than

one 12-ounce can of soda per day.9

This is a concern because children who drink more soft drinks

are more likely to become overweight,10and a recent study found

that decreasing children’s consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks

resulted in improved Body Mass Indexes (BMIs) for those originally

at a higher BMI.11

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Market in the US,” Packaged Facts,

May 1, 2006 http://www.

packagedfacts.com/pub/

1119536.html

Advertising: Targeting children in a

toxic environment,” in Singer and

Singer, Handbook of Children and the

Media, Sage Publications, 2001 Cited

in “Raising Media Savvy Kids: A

Common Sense Toolkit,” Common

Sense Media, 2005.

National Advertisers,” June 26, 2006.

www.adage.com/images/random/

lna2006.pdf

content of foods advertised during the

television programs children watch

most,” American Journal of Public

Health, 2005; 95:1568-1574.

Candy, Snacks and Fast Foods Drowns

Consumers Union report, September

2005.

Kids are a primary market:

Marketers want to reach children not only to sell their products nowbut to develop customers for life Marketing may influence children

to develop positive feelings about a branded food or beveragebefore they even get a chance to taste it, leading to the industry’sdream achievement: “cradle-to-grave brand loyalty.” To make thishappen, food marketers reach out to children constantly, startingwhen they are very young

Corporations understand that children are a lucrative market.Kids in the U.S have tremendous purchasing power: childrenbetween 3 and 11 years old bought or influenced the purchase of

$18 billion worth of products and entertainment in 2005.12

Advertising of unhealthy foods far outweighs that of healthier foods:

Food is advertised in more than half of all ads targeting children,and children see an average of one food ad for every five minutes

of Saturday morning TV they watch.13

Advertising Age reported that $12.38 billion was spent on

“measured media” advertising alone by the food, beverage andrestaurant industries in 2005.14This includes TV, radio, magazine,newspaper, billboard and Internet ads; TV is where the majority ofthese advertising dollars are spent, by far

The foods advertised on television are generally not healthy.One recent study found that packaged snack foods, fast foods, andsweets accounted for 83% of foods advertised during TV showsheavily viewed by children.15

By comparison, the California Pan Ethnic Health Network andConsumers Union found that a mere $9.55 million was spent in

2004 on communications for the federal and California “5 A Day”programs (which promote eating five fruits and vegetables a day forbetter health) With industry expenditures more than one thousandtimes greater than the 5 A Day budgets, “it is no wonder thathealthful dietary messages from government, parents and othersare barely audible,” according to CPEHN and CU.16

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Notable Voices:

“Corporate America doesn’t spend $10 billion a year on [food] advertising aimed at children on the off chance that it might be effective No It spends $10 billion because that advertising works brilliantly because it persuades children to demand — to the point of throwing temper tantrums, if necessary — a regular diet of candy, cookies, sugary cereal, sodas, and all manner of junk food That’s why most of the fast-food chains market expressly to chil- dren, rolling out ad campaigns using popular cartoon characters and movie figures.”

Senator Tom Harkin,

in a speech to the

7 th Annual KidScreen Summit

February 8, 2006

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Academies press release, 12/6/05,

“Food Marketing Aimed at Kids

Influences Poor Nutritional Choices,

IOM Study Finds; Broad Effort Needed

to Promote Healthier Products and

Diets.”

of Medicine, December 2005

Advertising,” in Singer and Singer,

Handbook of Children and the Media,

Sage Publications, 2001.

The evidence is in: Children’s diets are adversely affected by food marketing:

In December 2005, the Institute of Medicine released Food Marketing to Children and Youth: Threat or Opportunity?, an

exhaustive review of the scientific evidence on food marketing tochildren and obesity This report contained two key findings:

Food and beverage marketing targeted to children ages 12and under leads them to request and consume high-calo-rie, low-nutrient products.17

The dominant focus of marketing to children and youth is

on foods and beverages high in calories and low in ents, and is sharply out of balance with healthful diets.18

nutri-Practices such as using popular cartoon characters on food ing and in ads are particularly persuasive Even the food and bever-age industry’s own Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) admit-ted that “the mere appearance of a character with a product cansignificantly alter a child’s perception of the product.”19

packag-The effect of advertising is even stronger on younger children.Children under the age of 8 do not recognize the persuasive intent

of ads and tend to accept them as accurate and unbiased.20

It’s even worse for communities of color:

Just as people of color in the U.S suffer disproportionately fromobesity, overweight, and chronic illnesses such as diabetes and car-diovascular disease, they are also disproportionately targeted by thefood industry

Food companies and advertisers reach communities of colorthrough targeted advertising — campaigns designed for and placedspecifically in media and TV shows whose audiences are largelymade up of people of color In 2005, food, beverage, candy andrestaurant companies spent nearly $512 million to advertise inHispanic media, outspent only by the automotive industry.21Six ofthe top 10 advertisers on BET (Black Entertainment Television) in

1999 were food or beverage companies, which together spent

$30.5 million to pitch their goods to BET viewers that year 22

The foods and beverages marketed to African-Americans andLatinos are often not as healthy as those marketed to general audi-ences For instance, a recent survey of prime-time TV programsfound that far more food commercials appear on shows with largeAfrican-American audiences than those for general audiences, andthat most of these ads are for “fast food, candy, soda, or meat (e.g.,sausages, cold cuts.)”23

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Pact, Annual Guide to Hispanic

Advertising and Marketing,” 2006

edi-tion, page 10.

Advertising expenditures by firm and

brand in African American-oriented

electronic and print media: An analysis

of 1999 competitive media reporting

(CMR) data, University of Texas at

Austin advertising department, 2005.

Cited in Out of Balance: Marketing of

Soda, Candy, Snacks and Fast Foods

Drowns Out Healthful Messages.

CPEHN and Consumers Union report,

September 2005.

adver-tising in the age of obesity: Content

analysis of food advertising on general

market and African American

televi-sion,” Journal of Nutrition Education

and Behavior, July-August 2005; 5-85.

Cited in Out of Balance: Marketing of

Soda, Candy, Snacks and Fast Foods

Drowns Out Healthful Messages.

CPEHN and Consumers Union report,

September 2005.

Marketing: More than just advertising

People are usually most aware of the ads that kids watch on TV, butit’s important to realize that marketing is far broader and morewide-reaching than that In fact only 20% of all food and beveragemarketing in 2004 was devoted to ads on TV, radio, print, billboards

or the internet

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$10.5 billionper year

The food and beverage industry spends $10-12 billion a year —that’s one million dollars every hour of every day — just to reachchildren and youth Of that:

$1 billion is spent on advertising to kids (primarily on TV);

$4.5 billion goes to youth-targeted promotions such as miums, coupons, sweepstakes and contests;

pre-$2 billion is spent on youth-targeted public relations, such

as efforts to place articles about the product in youthmedia;

$3 billion goes to packaging designed for children.24

Youth-Targeted Food and Beverage Marketing

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Marketing and the Media: Improving

Messages,” September 2004 Drawn

from Preventing Childhood Obesity:

Health in the Balance, 2005.

Youth PR

$2 billion

$10.5 billionper year

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Brief, “Interactive Advertising and

Children: Issues and Implications,”

Dale Kunkel, PhD Professor of Communication

University of Arizona 25

Marketing’s classic Four P’s:

In order to combat the effects of marketing, we must understandhow it is designed to work In the 1950s, marketing guru PhilipKotler developed the concept of the Four P’s of Marketing:26

Product,Place,Promotion, andPrice

Marketers adjust each of these components to arrive at a mix thatwill influence the customer to choose their products over the com-petitor’s

This framework provides a useful way to explore how marketingworks Food and beverage marketers reach our kids at every one ofthese marketing points:

Product:

Product refers to the full bundle of goods and services offered tothe customer, including any packaging it comes in and the “non-tan-gibles” —- benefits —- the customer perceives to come along withthe product

The industry tries to convince children that they need special

“fun” foods designed just for them There has been a dramaticincrease in new food products developed for and targeted to U.S.children and youth in the last 10 years (See chart, next page.)

Of course, a healthy diet for kids is very similar to that foradults, and children don’t need any special foods Products such aschicken nuggets, fruit leather, colored ketchup, sugared cereals andother foods “just for kids” are created to make money for the foodcompanies, not to meet children’s special dietary needs

The way products are packaged plays a big role in their appeal

to children Popular cartoon characters such as SpongeBobSquarePants and Dora the Explorer appear on everything fromHoneycomb cereal and Teddy Grahams crackers to frozen mealsand Cheezit’s Interestingly, Kraft’s own voluntary policies aboutmarketing to kids, adopted in 2005, dictate that they don’t adver-tise on TV with these characters, but as of 2006 they are still used

on packaging for Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and other kid-orientedKraft products

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cited in HBS Week, May 6, 2002

The way foods are packaged can also promote tion (bags of chips that most people perceive to be a single serving;Big Gulps packing enough soda for 8 servings) or can encouragemoderation (Kraft is bringing out a line of Oreos packaged two to apacket, to delineate the serving size).

over-consump-Toys and other give-aways packaged with food products areanother way marketers reach children You can get a McDonald’sHappy Meal with “baby safe” toys for toddlers under 3 years old

(including toys from the baby-targeted TV show Teletubbies in a

2000 promotion)

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Significant Growth in

New Food Products Targeted to

U.S Children and Youth

1994 to 2004

new products targeted

to total market

new products targeted

to children & youth

source: Williams J 2005b Product Proliferation

Analysis for New Food and Beverage Products Targeted to Children 1994–2004 University of

Texas at Austin Working Paper.

Place refers to where and how the product is distributed and sold.The marketers’ objective is to make their products accessible in asmany places as possible — making it seem normal for our cars,cafes and bookstores, libraries, schools, sports arenas, movie the-aters, and as many other places as possible to be consideredappropriate places to eat

For food and beverages aimed at kids, the following “place”considerations all have impact:

locations of stores selling both healthy and unhealthy food,including convenience stores and grocery stores, farmersmarkets, etc

location and proliferation of fast food outlets

food and beverage sales opportunities at schools and inafter-school programs

within stores: positioning on shelves, in special displays or

at checkout (Food companies often pay grocery stores todisplay their products in special high-visibility locationssuch as at the ends of aisles.)

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Food marketers try to reach out to children everywhere theyspend time There is a good deal of documentation of the problem

of unhealthy foods and sodas sold at school For those ties who would like to tackle this problem head on, we highly recom-

communi-mend California Project LEAN’s toolkit, Captive Kids: Selling Obesity

at Schools This action guide to stop the marketing of unhealthyfoods and beverages in school is available at http://www

californiaprojectlean.org

As many schools have started to limit unhealthy food and erage products and marketing, marketers have made incursionsinto other areas where kids are, including targeting after-schoolprograms For example, Taco Bell has built kitchens in communitycenters to train youth to work in fast food; Altria (owner of KraftFoods as well as Philip Morris tobacco companies) provides curricu-lum kits on decision-making skills to after-school programs such asBoys and Girls Clubs; and other marketers provide new producttaste tests, food giveaways, and other promotional activities toafter-school programs The industry claims these activities are funfor the kids, and a money-saver for the program — but in fact thecompany gets to use the kids as a free focus group for developingtheir new products — without the parents’ knowledge or permission

bev-Of course, the food and beverage products promoted are usuallynot healthy For more on how you can combat these marketing prac-tices in after-school programs, see Sections 4 and 5 of this toolkit

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Promotion refers to the advertisements and other techniques keters use to make customers aware of the product and eager toseek it out This includes traditional advertising on TV, radio and inprint, but also many other forms of promotion, including a boomingtrend of interactive promotions via the Internet and other digitalmedia

mar-In an age of increasing digital media, corporations are pursuingmany new opportunities to get their desired customers to “engage”with their brands A July 2006 study from the Kaiser FamilyFoundation found that 85% of the leading food brands that targetchildren on TV also have websites with online content that is target-

ed to children.27Most contain “advergames” — interactive games inwhich a company’s product or brand characters are featured, func-tioning as a game and an advertisement in one These are

“designed to draw attention to the brand in a playful way, and for anextended period of time.”28

These food and beverage product websites are aimed at ing the child engaged with the brand for as long as possible, whilebombarding them with messages about the product For instance,

keep-at http://www.cheetos.com, kids can “hang out” with “ChesterCheetah,” an animated Latino-accented cheetah character, wholeads children on interactive games and tours of his funhouse whilepitching Cheetos brand snacks

Similarly, the Oreo website contains interactive games, a sonality test” (“Are you an Oreo dunker, twister, or licker?”), and ani-mated cartoons of milk and Oreo hanging out together — as well as

“per-TV ads clearly aimed at kids under 12 Kraft’s own internal lines for advertising say they will no longer target young childrenwith TV ads for their less healthy products — yet these ads are stillshown on their website

guide-Fighting Junk Food Marketing to Kids | bmsg.org 22

Advergaming and the Online Marketing

of Food to Children.” The Henry J.

Kaiser Family Foundation, Menlo Park,

CA, 2006 Available at:

http://profile.kff.org/entmedia/

entmedia071906pkg.cfm

ibid., pg 6.

These and other food and beverage websites offer childrenproduct coupons and incentives for product purchase Many ofthem provide “viral marketing” opportunities, where kids can sendtheir friends messages about the website and the product After all,marketers know that nothing promotes a product like peer-to-peerword of mouth And many of the sites solicit personal information,product preferences and other valuable marketing data from theirchild visitors.

Beyond their online presence, food and beverage marketerspursue other promotional activities to target children and youth,including:

Promotional tie-ins with kids’ movies

For example, McDonald’s and M-n-Ms both had summer

2006 promotions linked to Disney’s “Pirates of theCaribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.”

Sponsorship of cultural or community events:

Burger King sponsored the Vibe (hip hop magazine) MusicFest in June 2005 (during Black Music Month), featuringartists such as Kayne West, Sean Combs, Keyshia Cole,Ludacris, and more.29

Mobile phone and email ads:

Companies are increasingly using text messaging andemail to connect with their young customers Teens providetheir cell phone number or email address when signing upfor a membership on a food or beverage website (for exam-ple, registering to receive Mountain Dew’s “Dewsletter”).Parental permission is not required for youth over age 13

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This final “P” deals with how much is charged for the product.Marketers have a great deal of discretion over their product pricing.They can choose to package and price items to encourage cus-tomers to consume more of some products

For example, less nutritious foods are often priced more

cheap-ly than healthier ones This is because they are often cheaper toproduce, cheaper to ship, cheaper to store, and longer lasting —therefore companies can charge less for them The fact that a 20-ounce soda is cheaper than a 20-ounce bottle of milk, for instance,may encourage greater soda consumption and discourage milk con-sumption

One widely practiced pricing strategy in the food and beverageindustry is volume discounts Fast food restaurants offer two burg-ers for a dollar; corner markets trumpet a 64-ounce “Big Gulp” sodafor just pennies more than a more moderate serving These prac-tices appeal to customers, especially young people, who have fewerdisposable dollars and are in search of bargains However, they canalso encourage customers to buy and consume more than they oth-erwise would have, which can contribute to overweight and healthproblems

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Solutions:

What can local communities do to limit marketing to kids?

Because advertising and marketing programs are produced

central-ly in major multi-national corporations, and because the FirstAmendment protects commercial speech in advertisements, manylocal communities feel their hands are tied to do anything about themarketing deluging their children

Fortunately, however, there are a variety of legal and potentiallyeffective routes that local communities can use to intervene in thefour Ps of classic marketing We present only a sampling here; youmay come up with other strategies that could make a difference aswell

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• Impose product standards: e.g., foods sold as a complete “meal”must not exceed predetermined limits for unhealthy characteris-tics such as calories, salt, fat, etc.

• Impose product labeling requirements: e.g., require chain rants to provide nutrition info on their menus or menu boards

restau-Fighting Junk Food Marketing to Kids | bmsg.org

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market-• Ask grocers to designate a “Candy-Free Check Out Aisle” to giveparents an opportunity to dodge the “pester factor” in the check-out line.

• Pass a sidewalk encroachment ordinance saying small groceriesmay use sidewalk space outside the store for selling goods, butonly for produce

• Use vacant lot parcels (donated by the city) for community dens to supply farmers’ markets

gar-• Use the conditional use permit (CUP) process to put a

moratori-um on new fast food or junk food outlets in a community

• A land use law could 1) prevent fast food outlets from openingwithin 500 feet of schools; 2) prevent fast food outlets fromopening within 500 feet of another fast food outlet; and 3) limitthe number of fast food outlets in a community to one per every

X residents

• Ask retailers (grocery stores etc) to put healthier items withineye’s sight of children and lower nutrient items on the highershelves, or to arrange cereal boxes with the nutrition labels outrather than the cartoon-character-laden fronts out

• Pass local legislation to require that candy, for instance, beplaced behind the counter so that the customer must ask to pur-chase the product Similar to the restrictions that commonlyeliminate self-service for tobacco products, such limits areintended to discourage impulse purchases, and also reduce thethreat of shoplifting.30

• Add language banning marketing and promotion of unhealthyfoods to the school district’s Local Wellness Policy

• Ask after-school programs not to allow food and beverage keters to provide activities or curricula to the program

mar-• Eliminate drive-through service at restaurants selling unhealthyfoods

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personal communications, April 2006.

promo-• Ask your city council to pass a resolution to request specifiedfederal, state, and local officials and private industries to takeactions concerning foods and beverages marketed to children.32

• Support proposed federal restrictions on food advertising duringkids’ TV programming and on the use of cartoon characters tosell unhealthy products.33

Price:

• Make certain snack foods and/or sodas more expensive by ing them (Unlike with alcohol and tobacco taxes, however, “junkfood” taxes have not been found to reduce consumption.)

tax-• Levy regulatory fees (an additional business license fee) onretailers who sell products that have been demonstrated toincrease obesity, for instance sweetened beverages and restau-rant meals Fees raised must be earmarked for specific publichealth promotion programs

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encourages unhealthy eating; note

that restricting toys is not restricting

speech.” Ibid.

avail-able from Center for Science in the

Public Interest at http://

www.cspinet.org/nutritionpolicy/

modelcity_marketingresolution.pdf

as Sen Tom Harkin’s HeLP America

Act) haven’t gone far yet, but according

to the IOM’s December 2005 report, if

two years of industry voluntary efforts

do not make a dent in the problem,

stricter regulation and legislation on

advertising should be pursued See

also CSPI report Guidelines for

Responsible Food Marketing to

Children at http://www.cspinet.org/

marketingguidelines.pdf

Discussion Guide, Activities, and Worksheets

Video Discussion Guide

Including questions on the problem and possible solutions,

for advocates, parents and youth