A recent study attempting “to isolate the causal effect of junk food availability on children’s food consumption and body mass index (BMI)” has concluded that access to competitive foods in schools “does not significantly increase BMI or obesity among this fifth-grade cohort despite the increased likelihood of in-school junk food purchases.” Ashlesha Datar and Nancy Nicosia, “Junk Food in Schools and Childhood Obesity,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Spring 2012. According to the researchers, who used data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten Class as well as an instrumental variables (IV) approach leveraging “the well-documented fact that junk foods are significantly more prevalent in middle and high schools relative to elementary schools,” the results evidently revealed that where previous models had identified “any small positive associations” between junk food availability and obesity, those associations became insignificant “when controls for BMI at school entry and fixed state effects are added.”…
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In an article titled “Government Can Regulate Food Advertising to Children Because Cognitive Research Shows That It Is Inherently Misleading,” two attorneys and a communications professor assert that the First Amendment is no bar to the regulation of “junk food” ads targeting children younger than 12 because they lack the ability to understand the advertisers’ intent. Because children are unable to effectively comprehend advertising, according to the authors, any commercial messages directed toward them are “inevitably misleading.” The research and article were supported in part by a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant. The article first cites research about the amount of time children spend watching TV as well as “more than sixty published studies” purportedly linking TV exposure and obesity. It also discusses the numbers of “low-nutrient, calorie-dense” products advertised to children daily on TV and notes that the most heavily advertised food brands are also promoted online through advergames…
In an article supported, in part, by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, authors Jennifer Harris and Samantha Graff suggest that the findings of psychological research about the subliminal effects of food advertising on young people should be considered when advertisers defend their practices by invoking the First Amendment’s commercial speech doctrine. Harris, who is affiliated with Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy, and Graff, with Public Health Law & Policy in Oakland, California, contend that U.S. Supreme Court First Amendment jurisprudence is premised on the understanding that consumers use the free flow of commercial information to make logical decisions. “The commercial speech doctrine is built on a rational choice theory of behavior,” they claim. But because advertisers often resort to newer forms of advertising using “implicit messages” intended to “covertly” influence behavior and because young people are purportedly unable to resist food advertising or consider the content rationally, the…
Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity recently published a study claiming that “children are disproportionately targeted by food company Websites using branded computer games, known as advergames,” which allegedly promote “calorie-dense nutrient-poor foods.” Jennifer Harris, et al., “US Food Company Branded Advergames on the Internet: Children’s exposure and effects on snack consumption,” Journal of Children and Media, November 2011. According to the study’s abstract, Rudd Center researchers found that 1.2 million children visit food company advergame sites every month and that “playing these games increases children’s consumption of junk food.”
“House Republicans are siding with food companies resisting the Obama administration’s efforts to pressure them to stop advertising junk food for children,” writes Associated Press reporter Mary Clare Jalonick in a July 6, 2011, article examining the efforts of individual legislators to stymie proposed Federal Trade Commission (FTC) food marketing guidelines. According to Jalonick, while food companies have lobbied “aggressively” against the proposal, Republican representatives have sought to include a provision in next year’s FTC budget “that would require the government to study the potential costs and impacts of the guidelines before implementing them.” As Representative Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) explained, the guidelines might otherwise “lead to extraordinary pressure from the federal government” on those who do not conform to the voluntary measure. But consumer advocates like the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) have disputed this reasoning. “The industry is exaggerating the influence of these voluntary regulations to gin…
Calling for the food industry to put voluntary nutrition labeling initiatives on hold, Kelly Brownell, director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Childhood Obesity, has co-authored an opinion piece about front-of-package nutrition labeling in The New England Journal of Medicine. Among other matters, the article recommends that industry leaders await an Institute of Medicine report with nutrition labeling recommendations due for release this fall. Brownell suggests that the nutrition keys system under development by the industry may confuse consumers by “including so many symbols” and allowing companies the discretion to change the nutrients listed. According to the article, “The most notable deficiency of the industry system is its lack of a science-based, easily understood way to show consumers whether foods have a high, medium, or low amount of a particular nutrient.” Brownell contends that the traffic-light system used in Great Britain is much clearer. See NEJM, June 23,…
The parties to obesity-related litigation, brought on behalf of several teenagers against fast-food giant McDonald’s Corp. in 2002, have filed a stipulation of voluntary dismissal with prejudice. Pelman v. McDonald’s Corp., No. 02-7821 (S.D.N.Y., stipulation filed February 25, 2011). The action followed entry of an order in December 2010 scheduling pretrial discovery and motions filing and briefing for the individual claims remaining in this putative class action. A court refused to certify the action as a class in October. Pelman was closely watched by industry and consumer advocates as it made several trips before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals that ultimately narrowed the issues for trial. It was expected to be groundbreaking litigation that would allow access to industry documents which plaintiffs’ interests believed could be used to bring a flood of litigation against companies they blame for the nation’s increasing incidence of obesity. The experience of litigators opposing…
New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman tackles the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) latest dietary guidelines in this opinion piece claiming that “the agency’s nutrition experts are at odds with its other mission: to promote our bounty in whatever form its processors make it.” According to Bittman, the guidelines are clearest when promoting “good” foods like fresh produce, but become “vague” when describing what not to eat, often resorting to scientific language and acronyms like SOFAS—Solid Fats and Added Sugars—“to avoid offending meat and sugar lobbies.” “The [USDA] can succeed at its conflicting goals only by convincing us that eating manufactured food lower in SOFAS is ‘healthy,’ thus implicitly endorsing hyper-engineered junk food with added fiber, reduced and solid fats and so on, ‘food’ that is often unimaginably far from its origins,” opines Bittman. “The advice people need is to cook and eat more real food, at the expense…
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.
Writing in the New Scientist, a Washington, D.C.-based journalist recently discussed the latest research on the effect of “junk food,” or foods high in sugar, fat and salt, on animal and human brains and behavior. Bijal Trivedi reports, “Some say there is now enough data to warrant government regulation of the fast food industry and public health warnings on products that have harmful levels of sugar and fat.” According to Trivedi, studies have shown that some foods appear to have an addictive effect similar to cocaine addiction on rat brains and that two routes to “food addiction” could be linked to overactive and underactive dopamine systems: “one if you find food more rewarding than the average person, and another if it isn’t rewarding enough.” Trivedi discusses the consideration that tobacco activist John Banzhaf has been giving to “food addiction”; he apparently believes that sufficient evidence exists for the U.S. Office…
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