The Institute of Medicine’s (IOM’s) Food and Nutrition Board has announced an October 20, 2011, public workshop in Washington, D.C., titled “Alliances for Obesity Prevention: Finding Common Ground.” Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and hosted by IOM’s Standing Committee on Childhood Obesity, the event will include discussion of ways to engender dialogue and develop new alliances among obesity-prevention allies. Speakers will include Susan Linn of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.
Tag Archives children
The House Energy & Commerce Committee held a hearing on October 12, 2011, to consider “Food Marketing: Can ‘Voluntary’ Government Restrictions Improve Children’s Health?” Speaking for the committee, Chair Fred Upton (R-Mich.) concluded that an interagency working group tasked with developing standards for marketing food to children and teenagers had taken what appeared to be “a first step toward Uncle Sam planning our family meals.” Agency witnesses, such as Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Bureau of Consumer Protection Director David Vladeck, then testified that the proposed voluntary standards released in spring 2011 are undergoing “significant revisions” to allay the concerns of industry stakeholders. Among other matters, the FTC has determined that (i) “with the exception of certain in-school marketing activities, it is not necessary to encompass adolescents ages 12 to 17 within the scope of the covered marketing”; (ii) “philanthropic activities, charitable events, community programs, entertainment and sporting events, and theme parks…
Cara Wilking, a Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) staff attorney, has authored an issue brief intended to provide a legal foundation for consumer protection lawsuits against food companies that advertise “unhealthy food and beverage products” to children in a manner that she describes as “pester power” marketing. She explains that such marketing “targets children who, unable to purchase products for themselves, nag, pester and beleaguer their parents into purchasing unhealthy food products for them.” Wilking’s premise is that “[p]ester power marketing tactics are similar to oppressive and unscrupulous ‘high pressure’ sales tactics,” and that parents, for a number of reasons, are unable to say “no” when their children beg for these products in public. According to Wilking, two primary legal theories can support private litigant claims and are also “applicable to actions initiated by state attorneys general to protect the public interest.” Those theories are (i) “pester power marketing as…
Public health advocates from around the country have sent a letter to President Barack Obama (D) urging his administration to finalize the April 2011 proposed voluntary standards for food marketing to children. The guidelines would set limits on the amount of unhealthy fats, added sugars and sodium in foods advertised to children ages 2-17. Additional information on the proposed guidelines, which were designed by a Federal Trade Commission-led working group, can be found in Issue 392 of this Update. The September 27 letter was signed by 75 individuals claiming expertise in nutrition, marketing, medicine, and public health, including Kelly Brownell, Director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity; anti-tobacco attorney Richard Daynard, Director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute; Frank Hu, Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health; Marion Nestle, New York University Professor of Nutrition and Food Studies; and Juliet Schor,…
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has proposed amendments to rules issued under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which requires the owners and operators of websites intended for children younger than age 13 to obtain “verifiable consent from parents before collecting, using, or disclosing such information from children.” The amendments apparently seek to address recent changes in how children access the internet as well as innovations in social media and other online services. According to a September 15, 2011, FTC press release, the proposal would modify the COPPA rule in five areas: (i) “definitions, including the definitions of ‘personal information’ and ‘collection’”; (ii) “parental notice”; (iii) “parental consent mechanisms”; (iv) “confidentiality and security of children’s personal information”; and (v) “the role of self-regulatory ‘safe harbor’ programs.” Notably, the amendments would expand the definition of “personal information” to include “geolocation information and certain types of persistent identifiers used for functions other…
The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) has issued a report claiming that “almost 1 out of 11 radio ads for alcoholic beverages in 75 markets across the nation in 2009 failed to comply with the alcohol industry’s voluntary standard for the placement of advertising.” According to CAMY, “Approximately 9 percent of all alcohol product advertisements aired on programming with underage audiences in violation of the industry’s 30 percent standard,” thus accounting for 18 percent of youth exposure to alcohol advertising. The report also alleges that (i) 32 percent of advertising placements “occurred when proportionately more youth were listening than adults age 21 and above”; (ii) “these overexposing ads generated more than half of youth exposure to radio advertising for alcohol in 2009”; and (iii) “in 2009, girls ages 12 to 20 were more likely than boys in the same age group to be exposed to alcohol advertising for alcopops,…
A number of law professors, including anti-tobacco activist and Public Health Advocacy Institute President Richard Daynard, have written to the heads of four federal agencies, in their role as the Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children, to support the group’s proposed nutrition principles for food marketed directly to children ages 2-17. Details about the proposed principles appear in Issue 392 of this Update. According to the September 6, 2011, letter, the principles “embody a constitutionally permissible set of government recommendations.” Written to counter a trade association letter that urged the group to withdraw the principles on constitutional grounds, the professors’ letter notes that the “recommended nutrition principles contain no mandates” and thus “do not violate the First Amendment.” Observing that the group “is better characterized as a routine governmental advisory body than an oppressive censorship panel,” the professors note, “no federal agency can impose legal repercussions on a…
The September 2011 issue of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s research and policy journal, Preventing Chronic Disease, features a special section dedicated to “Ethical Issues in Interventions for Childhood Obesity,” where contributors with Public Health Law & Policy, Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity, and other organizations discuss how best to balance government’s public health role with private rights and interests. In particular, the section includes articles that explore (i) strategies to limit youth food marketing in municipal spaces not already regulated by federal agencies; (ii) an ethical framework for evaluating popular policies, such as menu calorie labeling and soft drink taxes; (iii) perspectives from the Arkansas Act 1220 of 2003, “the first comprehensive legislative initiatives to combat childhood obesity”; (iv) ethical family and school interventions; and (v) the economic rationale for government intervention. “During the past decade, people throughout the country—from rural communities to…
The most recent issue of the Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology includes an article titled “Food Advertising and Childhood Obesity: A Call to Action for Proactive Solutions.” Co-authored by online law instructor Roseann Termini and Widener University School of Law students Thomas Roberto and Shelby Hostetter, the article explores whether food advertising is related to the epidemic of child obesity and what can be done to reduce its purported effects. Contending that government regulation of food advertisements directed at children is necessary because “children lack the cognitive skills to discern actual nutritional information amidst a veil of attention grabbing marketing techniques,” the authors discuss what regulatory options would best police the industry. While they note the constitutional issues raised by bans or limitations on commercial advertising, the authors apparently see no impediments to government overseeing and enforcing “the internal policies of food manufacturers,” aggressive enforcement of established youth…
A federal court in California has denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ first amended consolidated complaint in a case involving claims that “Ferrero misleadingly promotes Nutella® spread as healthy and beneficial to children when in fact it contains dangerous levels of fat and sugar.” In re: Ferrero Litig., No. 11-205 (S.D. Cal., decided August 29, 2011). According to the court, the plaintiffs sufficiently pleaded exposure to a long-term advertising campaign and reliance on the campaign in making their purchasing decisions to confer standing on them to bring their claims under California’s Unfair Competition Law, False Advertising Law and Consumers Legal Remedies Act.
