Food Marketing in Spotlight
By Bill McConnell -- Broadcasting & Cable, 5/24/2004 12:55:00 PM
With obesity in children setting off alarms from health experts, parents and lawmakers, limited-government think tank The Cato Institute next week will examine whether the government should prevent the marketing of food to kids.
Todd Zywicki, the Federal Trade Commission’s policy planning director, will be joined June 7 at Cato’s Washington headquarters by Daniel Jaffe, EVP of the Association of National Advertisers; and Dale Kunkel, a member of the American Psychological Association’s task force on advertising and children.
Food marketers spend $3 billion a year pitching food to kids, much of it high calorie, low nutrition snacks. Critics of the industry say the hard-sell contributes to a startlingly high 15% obesity rate among children and to increasing rates of diabetes.
"In the 1970s, " Cato points out, "the United States nearly banned the food industry from marketing food to children due to concerns over tooth decay. Many groups are now calling for the Federal Trade Commission to revisit such a ban."
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