Massachusetts public health regulators have reportedly approved proposed rules that would prohibit public schools from selling sweetened soft drinks, salty and calorie-laden packaged snacks, and white bread sandwiches as a way to combat childhood obesity. Effective in the 2012-13 school year, the proposed regulations need the approval of the state’s Public Health Council, which is expected to consider the issue in spring 2011. According to a news source, the proposed regulations would apply to a la carte lines, snack shops and vending machines, but not main cafeteria lines. “You don’t want to be feeding kids a bunch of sugar or low-nutrient foods and expect them to be well-prepared to learn,” said Jill Carter, executive director of the Health and Wellness Department in Boston’s public schools. See The Boston Globe, February 10, 2011.
Tag Archives children
According to a press report, the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that heads of state convening at the United Nations (U.N.), September 19-20, 2011, will use the U.N. General Assembly meeting to discuss restrictions on advertising foods of poor nutritional quality to children. WHO estimates that 43 million preschool children worldwide are overweight or obese, and some refer to the problem as a “fat tsunami,” responsible for millions of premature deaths annually. Norwegian Directorate of Health representative Bjorn-Inge Larsen reportedly indicated that he expects voluntary restrictions on junk food advertising to be adopted as laws that will ultimately ban the practice, similar to the way tobacco was addressed. See The Associated Press, January 21, 2011.
The Oakland-based Prevention Institute has issued a report claiming that front-of-package (FOP) labeling for children’s food is “misleading.” Authors of the study used the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative’s product list to identify 58 prepared foods, snacks, cereals, and beverages with FOP labeling. The researchers then defined a product as “unhealthful” if it met one or more of the following criteria: (i) greater than 35 percent calories from fat; (ii) greater than 10 percent calories from saturated fat; (iii) greater than 25 percent calories from total sugars; (iv) greater than 480 mg sodium per serving for non-meal items or greater than 600 mg per serving for meal items; and (v) less than 1.25g fiber per serving. Of the products sampled, 84 percent were allegedly “unhealthful and did not meet one or more nutrient criteria” derived from the U.S. Dietary Guidelines and the National Academies of Science. The report also…
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced that final approval was given to a settlement reached with a Nestlé S.A. subsidiary over claims that its children’s drink, BOOST Kid Essentials®, conferred specific health benefits, such as reducing the risk of colds and flu and reducing the duration of acute diarrhea. More information about the settlement appears in Issue 356 of this Update. And the summary of a related lawsuit that the National Consumers League filed against the company can be found in Issue 360 of this Update. The FTC said that this case was the agency’s “first one challenging advertising for probiotics.” See FTC News Release, January 18, 2011.
According to a press report, an amended putative class complaint has been filed in a Florida federal court against two companies that make and sell apple juice for children’s consumption, alleging that by failing to warn about the presence of lead in the juice the companies have violated state deceptive and unfair trade practices law. Poulis v. Gerber Prods. Co., No. 10-81475 (S.D. Fla., amended complaint filed January 11, 2011). The complaint was originally filed in state court soon after a California nonprofit organization notified the companies in June 2010 that their products contained lead in excess of levels established as safe under that state’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Proposition 65). It was removed to federal court in November. The plaintiffs have not apparently alleged personal injury from the exposure, but claim they would not have purchased the companies’ products if they had known about…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has issued a 78-page proposed rule revising school breakfast and lunch nutrition requirements as a way to combat childhood obesity. Noting that implementation would improve dietary habits and protect children’s health, the rule is part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 recently signed into law. Based on recommendations released in 2009 by the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine, the revisions reportedly represent the first major overhaul to school meals in 15 years. Among other things, the proposal calls for meals served to approximately 32 million school children to (i) include more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free and low-fat milk; (ii) limit sodium and saturated and trans fats; and (iii) help meet nutritional needs of children within their established calorie minimums and maximums. “We understand that these improved meal standards may present challenges for some school districts, but the new law provides…
Seeking to represent a class of California children younger than age 8 and their parents, the mother of a 6-year-old girl has reportedly filed a putative class action against McDonald’s Corp., alleging that it baits children by advertising its “unhealthy Happy Meals” with toys and thus “has helped create, and continues to exacerbate, a super-sized health crisis in California.” Parham v. McDonald’s Corp., No. __ (Cal. Super. Ct., San Francisco Cty., filed December 15, 2010). Counsel for the plaintiff includes Stephen Gardner with the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), which announced several months ago that it would be filing such a lawsuit. According to the complaint, “Most Happy Meals are too high in calories, saturated fat, and sodium to be healthful for very young children,” and the company “is engaged in a highly sophisticated scheme to use the bait of toys to exploit children’s developmental immaturity and…
President Barack Obama (D) has signed the Healthy, Hungry-Free Kids Act of 2010 into law, calling the bipartisan legislation “vitally important to the health and welfare of our kids and to our country.” Details about the bill appear in Issue 374 of this Update. “We’re seeing this problem in every part of our country in kids from all different backgrounds and all walks of life,” the president said in a statement. “As a result, doctors are now starting to see conditions like high blood pressure, high cholesterol and Type II diabetes in children—these are things that they only used to see in adults. And this bill is about reversing that trend and giving our kids the healthy futures that they deserve.” See White House Press Release, December 13, 2010.
Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity has released a new international database designed to track company pledges to limit food marketing to children. The database currently features 16 pledges: (i) three specific to the soft-drink industry; (ii) one specific to the food industry; and (iii) 12 applicable to the entire food industry. The pledges covered to date include the Council for Better Business Bureaus’ Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI), as well as agreements that are either international in scope or based in Australia, Brazil, Canada, European Union, India, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, or Thailand. The site breaks down each pledge according to “key criteria that define specific restrictions on marketing communications to children, including the definition of ‘children’ (age), the marketing directed at them (audience definition), the communications channels (ex. television, internet, etc.), marketing methods (ex. advertising using licensed characters, advertising using promotional materials, etc.)…
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has overruled Mayor Gavin Newsom’s (D) veto of a bill prohibiting restaurants from offering toy giveaways in children’s meals deemed too high in calories, salt or fat. Under the law, which takes effect in December 2011, restaurants can only provide toys with meals containing fewer than 600 calories and 640 milligrams of sodium, and if fat makes up less than 35 percent of the total calories. In vetoing the measure, Newsom called the legislation an “intrusive and ineffective approach” to combat the problem and “unprecedented governmental intrusion into parental responsibilities and private choices.” But Supervisor Eric Mar (D) told a news source after the November 23, 2010, veto override that parents and health advocates support the measure to help curb childhood obesity. “From the Institutes of Medicine to the World Health Organization, we know that reducing the consumption of junk food by kids could spare…
