Food Marketing to Children and Youth Threat or Opportunity? (2006) / Chapter Skim
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6 Public Policy Issues in Food and Beverage Marketing to Children and Youth
6 Public Policy Issues in Food and Beverage Marketing to Children and Youth
Pages 319-372
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children and youth. Public policy and activities that shape dietary guidance, nutrition education, food labeling, regulation of food marketing, food services, and food production and distribution, are all important determinants of the nutritional environments of children and youth.
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At the federal level, these efforts are anchored in the principles set out in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, previously introduced in Chapter 2. This section describes several nutrition education and promotion efforts offered through the U.S.
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Federal Nutrition Education and Promotion Programs A number of federal programs include important efforts to educate consumers of various ages about improving nutritional practices. Many target children, youth, or their care providers about the importance of a nutritionally balanced diet and regular physical activity.
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The school challenge is an extension of the DHHScoordinated Steps to a HealthierUS initiative, and is designed to build upon and expand the USDA Team Nutrition program that provides schools with nutrition education materials for children and families; technical assistance for school food service directors, managers, and staff; and materials to build community-based support for healthful eating and physical activity. The initiative also enhances the USDA's effort to improve the nutritional quality of school food service through the School Meals Initiative that establishes nutritional requirements for federally reimbursed school meals (USDA, 2004a)
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. In addition, through the Administration for Children and Families, the Head Start program grantees deliver a range of services related to comprehensive nutrition and nutrition education that foster healthy development and school readiness in low-income preschool children, ages 35 years, across the nation (DHHS, 2005a)
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. Research conducted by the FDA and the Food Marketing Institute has shown that about half of U.S.
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NUTRITION IN SCHOOLS Schools present an important means of reaching the nation's children and youth with programs and approaches for healthier diets. School-based interventions seek to provide the more than 50 million elementary and secondary students in the United States with nutrition education, healthy food services, food environments that support healthy choices, and family involvement for healthier lives.
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. USDA's Team Nutrition has developed implementation guidance that emphasizes overall goals designed to promote student wellness for nutrition education, physical activity, and other school-based activities; nutrition guidelines for all foods available on every school campus during the school day; guidelines for reimbursable school meals that are no less restrictive than regulations and guidance issued by the USDA Secretary under the Child Nutrition Act; designation of a responsible person to ensure that school meals meet the local school wellness policy criteria; and broadly involving key stakeholders in the development of the school wellness policy (USDA, 2004c)
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. One of the challenges to developing a program of media literacy education lies in its timing across the kindergarten through 12 spectrum, as a result of the fact that most children ages 8 years and younger do not effectively comprehend the persuasive intent of marketing messages, and most children ages 4 years and younger cannot consistently discern between television advertising and informational content -- hence training in the use of those powers of discernment requires that students have reached a certain developmental stage (Chapter 5)
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. USDA has also developed the Child Nutrition Labeling Program (CNLP)
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Recent attention has been drawn to other sources of "competitive" foods that are often high calorie and low nutrient and viewed as potentially displacing more healthful foods. Competitive foods include items sold through snack shops, student stores, vending machines, a la carte lines, and school fundraisers.
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. Statewide legislation was passed in California that will enact several restrictions to raise nutritional standards for competitive foods sold in all California schools by 2007 and ban the sale of carbonated soft drinks on all California school campuses by 2009 (Gledhill, 2005)
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Most also restrict the availability of competitive foods by either limiting their access during school meal periods, the entire day, or certain times. Examples of specific provisions include banning carbonated soft drinks from elementary or middle schools; requiring elementary schools to only serve food and beverages that meet certain nutrition standards; requiring middle schools to turn off vending machines not meeting nutritional standards until after the lunch period is over; banning the sales of FMNV in schools; and banning the sale of all competitive foods in elementary schools and limiting them in secondary schools (CSPI, 2003; TFAH, 2005)
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. In an effort to educate and guide parents, school administrators, and legislators through the policy change and implementation process, the USDA has developed the Changing the Scene -- Improving the School Nutrition Environment tool kit that seeks to help decision makers take a broad approach, addressing the entire school nutrition environment from a commitment to nutrition and physical activity, pleasant eating experiences, quality school meals, other healthful food options, nutrition education, and marketing the issue to the public (USDA, 2000)
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Social marketers also distinguish target audiences based on current behaviors (e.g., dietary, physical activity, sedentary, smoking habits) , future intentions, readiness to change, product or brand loyalty, and personal characteristics (Grier and Bryant, 2005)
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. Social Marketing Programs That Promote Physical Activity and Nutrition Several nationwide social marketing programs seek to promote physical activity and nutrition.
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. Social marketing programs have also been used to encourage consumers to reduce dietary fat intake.
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Evaluation of the VERBTM campaign is still in progress, although preliminary tracking suggests positive results in protecting against declining activity levels. Those who saw the VERBTM campaign messages had a higher level of awareness and maintained the same levels of physical activity in 2003 that they had in 2002.
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. A particularly interesting example of the social marketing approach to youth behavior change can be found in the truth® campaign of the American Legacy Foundation, an effort to use branding to achieve a social good (similar to the VERBTM campaign)
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Attitude changes may require sustained efforts over months and behavioral changes on a significant scale will take even longer. Maintaining those behavioral changes is an additional challenge, a lesson especially applicable to eating and physical activity, which are complex behaviors.
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To facilitate the development of the VERBTM campaign, and to provide direction for its evaluation, the CDC used both consumer research and a logic model that linked expected program inputs and activities with anticipated program outcomes and benefits (Huhman et al., 2004)
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These characteristics are the likely requirements for achievement of successful social marketing programs to improve the diets of children and youth. LEGAL REGULATION OF ADVERTISING AND MARKETING Implicit in the question of whether food and beverage marketing influences the health behaviors and outcomes of children and youth is the question of whether advertising should be legally regulated.
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. Legal Regulation of Food Plaintiffs seeking redress for injuries caused by food products can allege that a defendant has negligently prepared or served food (Clime v.
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The precise legal standards vary in the 50 states, and also change over time. The regulation of consumer advertising is a central task of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
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. In 1978 the FTC sought commentary on a proposed rule that would ban television advertisements addressed to children too young to understand the selling purpose of advertising and also ban television advertisements for food products posing the most serious dental health risks which are directed to, or seen by, audiences with a significant proportion of older children (Ratner et al., 1978)
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.9 The Central Hudson test imposes constitutional restraints on government efforts to restrict truthful, non-misleading advertisements in order to achieve desirable policy objectives like preventing smoking by children (Lorillard Tobacco Company v. Reilly, 2001)
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Reilley, 2001) .10 In recent years, however, the Supreme Court has tended to interpret the final prong of the Central Hudson test with increasing severity.
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Yet lower courts have applied the Central Hudson test to restrictions on marketing that include telemarketing (Mainstream Marketing Services, Inc.
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. Regulation of children's advertising must not only satisfy the final prong of the Central Hudson test, but it must also respect the integrity of communications between an advertiser and adults.
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FEC, 2003; Red Lion Broadcasting Company v.
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The committee agreed that there was potential benefit from children's advertising closely aligned with healthful diets, and if an emphasis on the advertising of healthful foods and beverages could not be accomplished voluntarily, Congress should consider and, most felt, enact legislation mandating the shift on both broadcast and cable television. The customary deliberations of the legislative process would afford the opportunity for further assessment of the execution and implications of such a shift.
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, in which case constitutional review will be quite strict, or instead as "commercial speech," in which case it will be subject to the more lenient standard of the Central Hudson test. Regulation of the Internet poses unresolved constitutional issues because the constitutional status of much speech on the Internet is at this time highly uncertain.
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This section identifies potential actions that have been suggested in various quarters to create industry incentives or support agricultural subsidies to produce and market more healthful foods, as well as those to reduce the demand for less healthful foods. Price Supports and Subsidies An analysis of the agricultural production in the United States relative to recommended dietary guidelines showed that the food supply contains a substantial surplus of sugars and oils; approximately the expected amounts of meat, milk, and grains; and substantially less than what is needed for fruits and vegetables (Duxbury and Welch, 1999)
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Other government regulations and programs may also affect food choices such as changes in welfare assistance regulations, which can increase or decrease household income and affect consumer food choices. How these regulations and polices impact individual dietary choices depends on how the regulations affect retail food prices and how responsive consumers are to the price changes (IOM, 1991)
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. The evidence does not exist at this time, however, to support a definite conclusion about whether imposing a sales tax on less healthful foods
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. FOOD MARKETING POLICIES OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES The rising concern about obesity in children and youth globally has led to public health responses in many countries and organizations.
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that includes protecting children from food marketing the network considers to be unhealthy (e.g., foods and beverages
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Article 16 of the EU Television Without Frontiers Directive states that "Television advertising shall not cause moral or physical detriment to minors." Many countries also implement regulations that restrict the timing and content of television advertising to children. As many as 25 European countries do not allow children's television programs of less than 30 minutes duration to be interrupted by advertising, which complies with Article 11 of the EU Television Without Frontiers Directive (Hawkes, 2004)
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, stipulating that advertisements may not be inserted during programs designed to be broadcast in schools or during programs for children of less than half an hour scheduled duration. Ofcom recently conducted research to examine the effects of food advertising on childhood obesity and concluded that television advertising has a modest direct effect on children's food choices.
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. Although a comprehensive evaluation is not available to assess the effectiveness of the ban on reducing exposure to child-directed television advertising, the Norwegian government has developed The Norwegian Action Plan to Reduce Commercial Pressure on Children and the Young People (Norwegian Ministry of Children and Family Affairs, 2005)
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. Also in Quebec, the Consumer Protection Act prohibits television advertising directed to children ages 13 and younger and has been in effect
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. The Australian obesity prevention action plan supports stricter national regulations on food advertising directed to children, and is considering a ban on advertising during children's television viewing time (NSW Centre for Public Health Nutrition, 2005)
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Dietary guidance, nutrition education and promotion, school nutrition policies and programs, food labeling, regulation of food marketing, and food production, distribution, and pricing policies, all have the potential to affect options and choices, and the milieu within which food and beverage marketing takes place. Several education and information programs and policies are sponsored by government at federal, state, and local levels and in many venues.
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Social marketing applies commercial marketing concepts and techniques to promote voluntary behavior change in specific groups or target audiences based on their socio-demographic, behavioral, and psychological characteristics. Evidence for the effectiveness of social marketing programs to promote healthful behaviors is promising but mixed.
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1994. Children and Television Advertising.
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2005c. Competitive foods and beverages available for purchase in secondary schools- Selected sites, United States, 2004.
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2005. USDA Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program.
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. FMI (Food Marketing Institute)
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2005. Effects of a mass media campaign to increase physical activity among children: Year-1 results of the VERBTM campaign.
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: Can Statewide Social Marketing Campaigns Impact Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Physical Activity Among 9- to 11-Year-Old Children? Pre sented at the 2005 Lecture Series of the University of California Davis Center for Ad vanced Studies in Nutrition and Social Marketing, Davis, CA.
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1996. Nutrition Education in Public El ementary and Secondary Schools.
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Washington, DC: Federal Trade Commission. Red Lion Broadcasting Company v.
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. Available: http://www.fns.usda.gov/oane/MENU/Published/Nutrition Education/Files/TNDP99-03.htm [accessed October 6, 2005]
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2005g. School Meals: Child Nutrition Labeling.
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