Marketing obesity

A range of media "affects children's choices and may have a strong influence on their tendency toward increased Obesity and chronic disease risk, according to a report last year by the Institute of Medicine

Television advertising, the Institute report concluded, "can especially affect children's food and nutrition-related knowledge and purchase decisions. "

In Washington today, the Federal Trade Commission will host a two-day conference that could be a landmark event in the ongoing battle against Childhood obesity. Titled "Marketing, Self-Regulation and Childhood Obesity," the gathering will examine strategies for dealing with marketing of products that potentially contribute to the widening girth of too many of our children.

Unfortunately, the focus of the conference will be to showcase what the food industry has done to regulate itself. It should be obvious that self- regulation has not done much to stem the rise of Childhood obesity - now afflicting some 9 million young people between ages 6 and 19.

Yet FTC Chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras signaled last month that any form of government regulation won't even be seriously considered. In a speech given in Chicago, she went out of her way to reassure her audience that this conference will not be the first step toward "new government regulations to ban or restrict children's food advertising and marketing." That approach, she said, was tried in the 1970s, and failed "for good reasons."

That characterization is a distortion of what occurred. In 1978, the FTC concluded that advertising directed to young children is "inherently unfair and deceptive," and proposed banning or restricting such advertising. But in the face of overwhelming industry opposition, Congress passed a law banning the FTC from regulating advertising. Rather than "failing," as Majoras argued, the approach was never implemented.

Self-regulation must be part of any strategy to limit the negative impact of marketing unhealthy products to children. For example, a recently inaugurated advertising campaign promoting the health benefits of sugar-laden cereals such as Cocoa Puffs, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Count Chocula seems to us to represent the height of corporate irresponsibility and should be reviewed by the industry's Childhood Advertising Review Unit.

But obesity is such an urgent public-health concern that government oversight should not be ruled out. At least the FTC should require that products marketed to children meet minimum nutrition standards. It should also embrace the Institute of Medicine's recommendation "to develop guidelines for advertising and marketing of foods, beverages and sedentary entertainment ... with attention to product placement, promotion and content."