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Study finds QSR, food companies still advertise unhealthy kids' foods
December 14, 2009
Concerns about childhood obesity and its relationship to advertising of foods with poor nutritional quality to children helped spark the self-regulatory Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, established by the Council of Better Business Bureaus in 2006. But a new study commissioned by Children Now, a leading national public policy organization, has found that while the 16 brands taking part — including McDonald's USA and Burger King — complied with their pledge, the food and beverage industry overall has failed to meet the Institute of Medicine's principal recommendation to voluntarily shift the balance of children's food marketing away from low-nutrient, high-density foods to "advertising strategies that promote healthier foods, beverages, and meal options."
From The Impact of Industry Self-Regulation on the Nutritional Quality of Foods Advertised on Television to Childrenstudy:
The findings in this report demonstrate that theChildren's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiativehas not improved the overall nutritional quality of ads targeting children. ...The advertising environment targeting children continues to expose them to nutritionally poor food products, contributing to the current childhood obesity epidemic. Children Now's study illustrates that the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative has failed to significantly improve this situation. As such, it is time for our nation's leaders to step forward and help ensure a healthy food advertising environment for our children.
QSR steps toward better-for-you
Several QSR chains offer healthy kids' meals, including the two that have signed the advertising pledge.McDonald's signed the CBBB's advertising pledge in 2006 to limit its national advertising to children under age 12 to products that represent healthy food choices.
McDonald's kids' meals that fit its Children's Food and Beverage Initiative pledge include the brand's four-piece Chicken McNuggets and Hamburger Happy Meals with low-fat white milk and apple dippers with low-fat caramel dip, as well as a Snack Wrap plus Fruit and Yogurt Parfait and bottled water. The meals have between 395 and 500 calories and 15 to 17 grams of fat.
Burger King has developed its BK Positive Steps program to focus on childhood nutrition. Last year, the company signed the CBBB's children's advertising initiative, committing to limit its advertising to children under age 12 to meals that meet federal dietary guidelines.
Burger King has four meals that meet its pledge: macaroni and cheese with BK Fresh Apple Fries (apples sliced to resemble french fries), low-fat caramel dip and low-fat milk; a two-pack of BK Burger Shots (bite-sized burgers topped with mustard, ketchup and pickles), BK Fresh Apple Fries, low-fat caramel dipping sauce and calcium-fortified Minute Maid apple juice; a hamburger served with BK Fresh Apple Fries, low-fat caramel dipping sauce and calcium-fortified Minute Maid apple juice; and a four-piece chicken tenders meal (consisting of chicken tenders reduced in sodium by about one-third), BK Fresh Apple Fries, low-fat caramel dipping sauce and Hershey's fat-free milk. The meals have between 340 and 460 calories and 7.5 and 12.5 grams of fat.
Far to go
Despite their efforts, the top advertisers have yet to shift their advertising to focus only on healthy offerings, the study found. Of the 16 companies taking part in the self-regulatory program, four — Kraft Food Inc., McDonald's, General Mills and Kellogg Co. — collectively account for 58.3 percent of children's food advertising observed overall and for 81.9 percent of all advertising from pledge companies. Those companies complied with their pledges but not necessarily with the Institute of Medicine's goal of advertising only healthy foods to children.
From the study:
Despite the fact that all food advertising by industry self-regulatory participants complies with each company's nutritional pledge, our data indicate that two-thirds of all pledge company advertising to children is devoted to products of the poorest nutritional quality, according to the (U.S. Health and Human Services') Go-Slow-Whoa food rating system. Specifically, 68.5% of all food ads aired by participating companies promote non-nutritious Whoa products, while 31.0% feature moderately healthy Slow products and only 0.5% are for truly healthy Go products. These data illustrate a fundamental disconnect between the way in which food products are defined as "healthy," according to the pledge criteria employed for the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, and the way in which healthy nutritional quality is judged from an independent perspective. ...The fundamental policy goal advocated by the Institute of Medicine is to reverse the children's food advertising environment by "shifting the emphasis away from high-calorie and low-nutrient foods and beverages to the advertising of healthful foods and beverages" (IOM, 2006, pp. 14-15). To be clear, this recommendation does not seek to have the industry merely reduce the unhealthy ingredients in high-calorie, low-nutrient foods and beverages in a manner that renders them less unhealthy. Rather, the Institute of Medicine clearly articulates a goal that food marketers should shift their advertising to healthy foods and beverages — with "healthy" judged from an absolute, not a relative, perspective. Herein lies the disconnect between the aspirations of the industry's self-regulatory program and the public health goals currently sought to help defeat the epidemic of childhood obesity.
Update:Four federal agencies — the Federal Trade Commision, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture — have proposed new limits on advertising of food products to children. The agencies have formed a working group to study and develop recommendations to develop new standards.
The proposed standards for marketing foods to children ages 2 to 17 include allowing any advertising for foods considered part of a healthful diet, including pure fruits and vegetables. The standards also qualify which foods are considered meaningful in a healthful diet and recommend disallowing advertising of foods that do not meet those standards.
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