A recent study has allegedly concluded that food commercials increased brain activity in adolescent viewers regardless of body weight. Ashley Gearhardt, et al., “Relation of Obesity to Neural Activation in Response to Food Commercials,” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, May 2013. Researchers with Yale University’s Rudd Center for Policy & Obesity, the University of Michigan and the Oregon Research Institute apparently used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the brain activity of 30 adolescents described as either normal weight (10 participants), overweight (eight participants) or obese (12 participants), who viewed a TV show interspersed with 20 food and 20 non-food commercials. The study’s authors then asked participants “to list five commercials that they had seen during the television program they just viewed to measure top-of-mind recall” and “to rate how much they liked the products/companies featured in the advertisements on a 5-point Likert scale” and “how familiar they were with…
During a recent interview with Atlantic journalist Joe Fassler, author Michael Moss discussed “the language of junk-food addiction” and the role of salt, sugar, fat, and texture in snack foods allegedly engineered to promote “mindless eating—where were [sic] not really paying attention to what we’re putting in our mouths.” According to Moss, who spoke with Fassler about why consumers find processed foods like potato chips so appealing, the food industry has invested “a trillion dollars of money” in creating and marketing products that seek “to override the natural checks that keep us from overeating.” “And I’ve found that the language they use to describe their work and their products and their [sic] striving not just to make us like their products but to make us want more and more of them is absolutely revealing,” opines Moss. “When they talk about the allure of food, they hate the word addiction: but…
Writing in the May 2013 edition of the Harvard Business Review (HBR), the editorial director of the HBR Press, Tim Sullivan, considers the questions raised by three new books that examine the evolution of the food industry and its relationship to consumer health. Turning to Michael Moss’s Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, Melanie Warner’s Pandora’s Lunchbox: How Processed Food Took Over the American Meal and Jon Krampner’s Creamy and Crunchy: An Informal History of Peanut Butter, the All-American Food, Sullivan notes that despite the blame leveled at food processors and marketers, “it’s much harder to tell the public that they are partly culpable for the state of their personal and national health (food, after all, is not crack) than it is to point the finger at Big Business, Wall Street, or the government.” “When monoliths take over and aim to get us ‘addicted’ to their product— whether we’re talking…
A perspective article published in the May 9, 2013, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) urges local governments to consider supplementing the federal Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) menu-labeling provisions with their own laws designed to improve consumer responsiveness to the calorie listings and increase overall compliance among businesses. Sara Bleich and Lainie Rutkow, “Improving Obesity Prevention at the Local Level—Emerging Opportunities,” NEJM, May 2013. Noting that many local governments “have already begun engaging in innovative regulatory activity related to obesity prevention (e.g., pre-ACA local menu-labeling laws) and will continue to do so,” the authors propose several strategies for influencing consumer behavior through more robust menu-labeling requirements, such as “presenting consumers with calorie information in the form of a physical-activity equivalent (e.g., minutes of running required to burn off a particular food)” instead of a straight calorie count; “replacing the default fries and soda in a child’s meal with apple…
New York University Nutrition Professor Marion Nestle has co-authored a rebuttal to claims that U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) made about a bill (H.R. 1572) which would prohibit the use of federal money “for print, radio, television or any other media advertisement, campaign, or form of publicity against the use of a food or non-alcoholic beverage that is lawfully marketed under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.” Schock introduced the measure, titled the “Stopping Taxpayer Outlays for Propaganda Act” or “STOP Act,” on April 15, 2013. In a Politico essay two days later, Schock claimed, “Using taxpayer dollars to attack the beverage and food industry might seem like a good idea to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but it’s this exact type of harmful government spending that we can ill afford and serves no purpose in the overall wellness debate—other than to be critical of domestic companies that employ…
San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera has filed a consumer-fraud lawsuit on behalf of the people of the state of California against Monster Beverage just one week after the company sued Herrera to halt his investigation into company advertising practices and demands. People v. Monster Beverage Corp., No. CGC-13-531161 (Cal. Super. Ct., San Francisco Cty., filed May 6, 2013). According to Herrera’s press release, Monster Beverage’s preemptive suit constituted “‘forum shopping’ and a bid to win the race to the courthouse.” Details about Monster Energy’s lawsuit appear in Issue 482 of this Update. The new lawsuit alleges that the company “aggressively markets” its energy drink products to children and teenagers, fails to adequately warn consumers about the purported risks of consuming such products, and illegally sold its beverages until earlier this year as a dietary supplement. According to the complaint, product labels claim that three 16-ounce cans can be safely…
A number of companies that make cereals and other products containing acrylamide, a chemical believed to be a byproduct of the Maillard reaction and found in baked or fried starchy foods, have been sued under California’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Prop. 65) for failing to provide warnings to consumers. RBC Four Co. LLC v. Post Foods, LLC, No. BC507122 (Cal. Super. Ct., Los Angeles Cty., filed April 30, 2013). According to the plaintiff, the chemical was added to the Prop. 65 list as a substance known to the state to cause cancer in January 1990 and became subject to the law’s warning requirements 20 months later. The complaint also notes that the current safe-harbor acrylamide-intake level is .2 μg/day and that the defendants’ products contain acrylamide levels that exceed maximum allowable dose levels “for chemicals causing reproductive toxicity with require warnings under Proposition 65.” Alleging that…
A federal court in New York has amended the preliminary injunction entered against Kangadis Food Inc., doing business as The Gourmet Factory, originally requiring that the company send stickers to affix to all products sold as “100% Pure Olive Oil” and provided to wholesalers and retailers before March 1, 2013, because those products were actually made from Pomace, a processed oil made from olive pits, skins and pulp. N. Am. Olive Oil Ass’n v. Kangadis Food Inc., No. 13-868 (S.D.N.Y., order entered May 7, 2013). Additional information about the earlier injunction appears in Issue 482 of this Update. The stickers were intended to inform consumers that the products were not “100% Pure Olive Oil.” The parties sought reconsideration after Kangadis indicated that it would prefer to recall its products from wholesalers and replace them with tins and bottles that do not contain Pomace. The plaintiff trade association agreed to allow…
A federal court in California has rendered its reluctant approval of a preliminary settlement in class litigation against Kellogg Co., alleging that the company falsely advertised its cereal product as a food that could help improve children’s attentiveness by 20 percent. Dennis v. Kellogg Co., No. 09-1786 (S.D. Cal., order entered May 3, 2013). The matter had been remanded from the Ninth Circuit, which reversed an earlier settlement approval, finding that the cy pres distribution to organizations helping the indigent of funds remaining after the class claims were paid had not been properly assigned. Additional information about the Ninth Circuit’s decision appears in Issues 447 and 453 of this Update. The district court observes that the new designated cy pres recipients, the Consumers Union, Consumer Watchdog and Center for Science in the Public Interest, are appropriate as consumer-protection organizations, but expresses its dismay over the decrease in cash value to…
Lawmakers in Maryland have passed a bill (S.B. 374) requiring the Office of the Attorney General to assemble and direct a workgroup to explore issues relating to the protection of children’s online privacy. The legislation requires that the workgroup include state government representatives, industry leaders, children’s online privacy experts, and consumer and children’s health advocates. Among other things, the workgroup will examine (i) the nature and extent of data collected about children through Internet–based and mobile application–based advertising; (ii) “current and forthcoming federal and state regulation of children’s online privacy and online advertising and associated data collection”; (iii) the effects on children of online advertising; and (iv) best practices to protect children’s online privacy. The law takes effect on June 1, 2013, and requires that the Attorney General’s Office report findings and recommendations to the Senate Finance Committee and House Economic Matters Committee by December 31.
