| The panel started with Michelle Rusk of the FTC explaining what the interagency working group was about. They were established by Congress last spring and they focused on kids ages 2-17. Because a 2008 report by the FTC already pretty well defined what constitutes "marketing" (split into 20 categories running the gamut from TV to online ads to text messaging to philanthropic activity), their group focused almost solely on nutritional guidelines for which foods should and shouldn't be marketed to kids. I'd like to see NO foods marketed to kids (I mean, really... would you let a salesman have a private sales meeting with your six-year-old? NO! And yet, kids get all kinds of messaging about what foods they should be from advertisers in nearly every part of their lives!), the speakers noted that advertisers have been great in supporting kids' TV programming. Translation: The government understands and respects that the money for kids' TV has to come from somewhere, and since kids' TV is oh-so-important to have, the obvious place to get the money for it is from ads. Therefore, ads to kids are inherently OK and all we must do now is figure out which kinds of foods we should advertise and which we shouldn't.
The first speaker, William Dietz of the CDC, spoke about the starting point for the working group. That starting point was obesity. Obesity costs $150 billion per year - nearly 10% of al health care costs - so clearly it's a problem we should do something about. That was the clear goal of this group in formulating their standards. Furthermore, he cites a study on the link between TV watching and obesity. The evidence, he noted, isn't totally clear on where that link comes from. Could it be the inactivity while watching TV, the food eaten while watching TV, or the effects of the food ads kids watch on TV? Or all three? Yet, he says, we shouldn't wait for conclusive evidence. We should take action NOW.
In short, their goals were to decrease kids' intake of "high energy" foods, reduce intake of sweetened beverages, and increase physical activity. Hmm. Providing a vehicle (like advertising) to fund kids TV is not a good way to do that, but that's just my two cents. He gave an example that the 10 least healthy cereals are also the top 10 cereals marketed to kids on TV and the top 10 marketed on the internet. Crazy coincidence, huh? Last, he added that their group looked at added sugar and sodium. He notes that sodium doesn't play a specific role in causing obesity but it plays a role in hypertension and the group felt it was significant to consider.
Next up was Barbara Schneeman from the FDA. She gave details on the standards they were proposing. The idea is that if a food does not meet these standards, you shouldn't (not can't, as this isn't a regulation) advertise it to kids.
Standard One: Certain foods are exempt from standards two and three. Those are 100% fruit or fruit juices, 100% vegetables or vegetable juices (that don't exceed 140mg of sodium per serving), 100% nonfat or lowfat milk, yogurt, 100% whole grain products, and 100% water.
Standard Two: Foods marketed to children should provide a meaningful contribution to a healthful diet. They are considering two options here:
Option A: A food must contain at least 50% by weight one of the following: a fruit, a vegetable, whole grain, fat free or low fat milk, yogurt, fish, extra-lean meat or poultry, eggs, or nuts. (Do beans or seeds fit in there somewhere?)
Option B: This version uses the food pyramid to determine how many servings of each food group a person should eat per day. They assume people eat 4 times daily and thus divide those serving numbers by 4. 1/4 of the recommended servings per day is a "meaningful contribution" of a food group.
Standard Three: This standard deals with nutrients to limit in the diet. They are:
- Saturated fat: 1g or less per serving, and not more than 15% of calories
- Trans fat: 0g
- Sugar (Added sugars): There is no reference value so they looked at guidelines recommending no more than 267 "discretionary calories" in a 2000 calorie diet and did some math there to come up with a value of 13g of added sugar per serving to qualify something as "high in added sugar." However, if a food has a small serving size, then they base their math on a serving of 50g of that food. Therefore, if a serving of a food is 30g, it's not allowed to have over 13g of added sugar in a 30g serving. It can have 13g or less of added sugar in a 50g serving (or only 7.8g of added sugar in a 30g serving).
- Sodium: This would ideally be 140mg/serving but that would disqualify a LOT of foods. Therefore, they decided to go with 200mg/serving instead.
The last speaker was Robert C. Post from the USDA. He spoke about the questions the group has for these guidelines. They include:
- Should we recommend standards that include 2 age tiers based on nutritional needs and caloric needs of teens (ages 12-17) vs. children (ages 2-11)?
- What criteria should be used to adjust for meals or main dishes with their larger portion sizes?
- When an ad is for an entire brand, then how is the criteria applied to specific foods within that brand?
- What about when an ad is for a restaurant chain instead of for specific menu items?
- How should the issue of nutrient fortification be addressed?
- Should the amount of product featured in an ad not exceed the labeled serving size?
- Are there foods that should be added or eliminated from Standard One?
- Should the sodium limit for canned vegetables be exempt or higher as some of it is drained away before consumption?
- Is the list of food groups in Standard Two good or should foods be added or removed from the list?
- With regard to vegetables in standard two, should they split it into green vegetables, orange vegetables, and red vegetables, since kids already eat a lot of potatoes?
- For Standard Two, should they pick option A or B?
- Where they assume a 2000 calorie diet, should they adjust this to a smaller number for kids?
- For Standard Three, are there more nutrients that should be limited like total fat, cholesterol, no-calorie sweeteners, or caffeine?
- In Standard Three, should they look at Added or Total Sugars or both?
- Should the amount of "discretionary calories" from fat and added sugars be adjusted down for kids?
- For sodium, should they have an interim limit followed by a final limit so companies can gradually reduce sodium?
- What impact would these standards have on food currently marketed to kids?
- What percent of foods currently marketed to kids would be eliminated by these standards?
- Do any of these standards create incentives for manufacturers to reformulate food in a way that wouldn't improve the nutritional quality (like replacing sugar with flour or a no-calorie sweetener)?
Those are all great questions. Fortunately, we (the American people) will have a chance to comment on these proposed standards when they put out a notice in the Federal Register and give us a chance to comment. I will follow up on this when the notice is posted and the comment period begins. |
