This time of year, it’s customary to look back and capture the most important historical moments. And all things considered, 2010 was a pretty good year. So in that spirit, here are my top 5 gains in food policy. (They are in no particular order.)
Child Nutrition
Happy Meal Makeover: How a Healthy Food Coalition Defeated a Fast Food Icon
On election day, while most of the nation was distracted with the mid-term election, another vote was taking place in San Francisco City Hall. The Board of Supervisors approved an ordinance to place limits—based on specific nutrition criteria—on how toys are marketed by restaurants in the city and county of San Francisco.
Why is McDonald’s listed a resource for Childhood Obesity Awareness Month?
I am not a fan of any sort of “awareness” month as I find the concept trivializes important health issues. Are we only supposed to care about heart disease, diabetes, etc, during that one month of the year? And I rarely see anything of substance come from the month-long activities, just the usual ineffective educational campaigns, instead of meaningful public policy reforms. Plus many issues tend to crowd themselves into certain months, so it all becomes background noise. September is one such month. Among other causes (e.g., “cholesterol education”), September has been proclaimed “Childhood Obesity Awareness Month” by Congress and President Obama. Continue reading →
Back to school with PepsiCo stealth marketing?
I recently blogged about questions regarding how PepsiCo’s voluntary beverage guidelines, announced in March, would be implemented in schools given that contracts are made at the local level. Now with back- to-school in full swing, I have even more questions about how PepsiCo may be using stealth marketing techniques to gain access to that coveted captive K-12 audience.
Today, the company announced a new program it calls Score for Your School. From the press release: Continue reading →
Will schools follow new PepsiCo beverage guidelines even if students want Mountain Dew?
This past March, soft drink giant PepsiCo announced with much fanfare a new global school policy. The specific guidelines, to take effect by 2012, limit the types of beverages that are to be sold in schools. According to the press release, the policy will “stop sales of full-sugar soft drinks to primary and secondary schools.”
That’s why the announcement last week that Union County High School in Indiana was signing on to a brand new five-year contract with Pepsi (thereby ending its exclusive contract with Coca-Cola) came as a surprise. Not the contract itself, but what one school official had to say about it. From the news article:
The new contract is expected to earn the high school and middle school and booster groups $20,000 more over five years, Union County Middle School Assistant Principal Mark Detweiler said. Prices for soft drinks will remain $1.25, but school officials expect sales to increase with Pepsi products. “Students drink Mountain Dew,” Detweiler said.
They sure do, only problem is, PepsiCo says those products aren’t for sale. Or are they?
I asked Derek Yach, director of Global Health Policy at PepsiCo for an explanation and he told me that the vending machines have not been put into place. He also said:
Our intent from the outset has been that the contract be 100 percent compliant with the American Beverage Association / Alliance for a Health Generation guidelines and other relevant PepsiCo policies. Our local teams in Indiana are well aware of this and will work closely with local school officials to ensure compliance.
Yach was referring to yet another voluntary policy announced by the soft drink industry back in 2006.
Someone should have probably clued in the school officials in Indiana at the time they signed the new contract. Were they even made aware of the PepsiCo policy not to sell the worst products, even if they are the most popular?
This raises many questions about how PepsiCo’s school policy will play out in each school district. Indeed, the language of the policy is pretty vague on implementation and enforcement:
PepsiCo will encourage our bottlers, vending companies and third-party distributors to work closely with parents, community leaders and school officials to ensure that only products that meet the following guidelines are offered…
“Encourage?” “Work closely?” And while it’s nice to mention them, what do parents and community leaders have to do with school contracts?
Here’s what New York University Professor Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics has to say about the Indiana contract:
In my experience, you have to see for yourself, which is why I love visiting schools when I get the chance. With school officials in tow, you can watch kids using the vending machines during the lunch hour with nobody saying a word. The incentive here is to sell MORE product, not less, and that’s the problem.
Right. And here we have the odd situation where the vendors will essentially be telling its customers: Sorry, but we can’t sell you Pepsi and Mountain Dew, those products that the kids love best and that will bring you all that extra cash you need to run your programs.
Let’s see how well that works.
Happy Meal Lawsuit Update: Is McDonald’s Playing Games with Nutrition Facts?
Last week I blogged about how the Center for Public Interest (CSPI) is threatening a lawsuit against McDonald’s for using toys to promote Happy Meals to kids. Since then, McDonald’s has responded, sort of. In a letter apparently fed to the press even before CSPI got to see it, McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner attempts to “set the record straight:”
We have a long history of working with responsible NGOs who are interested in serious dialogue and meaningful engagement; and we are open to constructive feedback.
Really? Like how McDonald’s worked with those two activists in the UK by suing them for libel in the 1990s for putting out a simple brochure? The case (dubbed McLibel) spawned a book and a movie and became notorious for being the longest English trial ever, not to mention the stupidest public relations move short of New Coke.
Skinner continues to dig his own grave:
Ronald McDonald also serves as an ambassador for children’s well-being, promoting messages around physical activity and living a balanced, active lifestyle.
Right. That must explain why an entire campaign was launched in March by Corporate Accountability International to Retire Ronald based on an investigation that showed how the clown’s main job is to promote McDonald’s unhealthy foods, in schools and just about anywhere children can be found.
And finally, Skinner asserts the company has “more choice and variety than ever before” in Happy Meals, and:
Furthermore, McDonald’s makes available in-depth, comprehensive nutrition information about our food to give parents the support they need to make appropriate choices for their children.
OK, now this is kind of true, and is where things get interesting. It appears that McDonald’s has already changed the nutrition facts on its website for Happy Meals. But only some Happy Meals, the ones that come with “Apple Dippers,” the healthy alternative to French fries.
In its June 22 press release about the potential lawsuit, CSPI complained that:
Of the 24 possible Happy Meal combinations that McDonald’s describes on its website, all exceed 430 calories (430 is one-third of the 1,300- calorie recommended daily intake for children 4 to 8 years old).
In documents provided by CSPI, here is what the nutrition listing looked like on the McDonald’s website as of June 15. If you compare these figures to this listing, which says is effective as of June 25, just 3 days after CSPI’s news release about the lawsuit, you will see for each of the Happy Meals that come with Apple Dippers, the number of calories has been reduced by exactly 70.
Could that be because McDonald’s has decided not to include the caramel dipping sauce in the total? Who knows? Any clever nutritionists out there want to help?
Not that this re-do really helps McDonald’s all that much, given that it only makes three of the 12 Happy Meal combinations with Apple Dippers below the 430 calorie level that CSPI says should be the cut-off. (And of course, all the others are still way over 430.) Never mind, CEO Jim Skinner has a retort to CSPI on that too:
On this point, it seems that you purposefully skewed your evaluation of our Happy Meals by putting them in the context of a highly conservative 1,300 calorie per day requirement. I’m sure you know this category generally applies to the youngest and most sedentary children.
The youngest? Ages 4-8 seems to fit squarely into McDonald’s Happy Meal demographic. The most sedentary? So now McDonald’s is saying as long as kids hop on the treadmill, Happy Meals full of chicken nuggets, fries, and soda is A-OK? You won’t find a health professional (not on Big Food’s payroll) to go along with that idea.
Also, as CSPI also pointed out, in 2007, McDonald’s pledged not to advertise to children meals that have more than 600 calories, and even with the revised calorie listings, 4 of the 24 combinations are still in violation of that pledge. Whatever the calories, it appears McDonald’s is headed to court. Here is Steve Gardner, CSPI’s litigation director, in response to the McDonald’s letter:
We’re encouraged to read that McDonald’s is signaling a willingness to make changes that are in the best interests of its customers. We hope that McDonald’s takes us up on our offer to negotiate an end to the practice of using toys to market unhealthful foods directly to children. If it doesn’t, that will all but guarantee that we will have to resort to litigation.
Stay tuned.
Update: Reporter Melanie Warner called McDonald’s to get an explanation for the calorie change. A spokesperson claimed they were just correcting a mistake. You can read her take at BNET.
McDonald’s Facing Potential Lawsuit for Luring Kids With Happy Meal Toys – It’s About Time
It was only a matter of time. Last month, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) served McDonald’s with a notice of its intent to sue if the fast food giant continues to use toys to promote Happy Meals. (An “intent to sue” letter is a prerequisite to filing a lawsuit in some states.) The basis for the potential case is that using toys to market to small children is unfair and deceptive under the consumer protection laws in a number of states. According to CSPI’s letter, McDonald’s toy promotions violate the laws of California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Texas, and the District of Columbia.
CSPI’s litigation director Stephen Gardner explained in a statement that “McDonald’s is the stranger in the playground handing out candy to our children. McDonald’s use of toys undercuts parental authority and exploits young children’s developmental immaturity.”
McDonald’s practices are predatory and wrong. They are also illegal, because marketing to kids under eight is (1) inherently deceptive, because young kids are not developmentally advanced enough to understand the persuasive intent of marketing; and (2) unfair to parents, because marketing to children undermines parental authority and interferes with their ability to raise healthy children.
This is important because CSPI is saying that McDonald’s practices are both deceptive to children and unfair to parents, the latter to deflect the argument that it’s really all the parents’ fault. For that perspective, CSPI’s press release quotes Sheila Nesbitt of Minnesota, a parent of a six-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl:
McDonald’s makes my job as a parent more difficult. They market cheap toys that appeal to kids and it works. My kids always want to go to McDonald’s because of the toys. I try my best to educate my kids about healthy eating but it’s hard when I am competing against the allure of a new Shrek toy.
According to a CSPI study, despite McDonald’s recent attempts at healthwashing Happy Meals with Apple Dippers and milk, French fries come with Happy Meals 93 percent of the time. The letter also explains the harm that Happy Meals cause:
McDonald’s practice of dangling toys in front of children is illegal, regardless of what meal the child eventually gets. Not only does the practice mobilize “pester power,” but it also imprints on developing minds brand loyalty for McDonald’s. Because most of the company’s options are of poor nutritional quality, eating Happy Meals promotes eating habits that are virtually assured to undermine children’s health.
Next, the letter explains how voluntary, self-regulation by industry has been a dismal failure:
Through the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, McDonald’s pledged to advertise only Happy Meals that meet McDonald’s nutrition standards for children. However, that pledge fails to address McDonald’s insidious use of toys to market its products to children. Regardless of the Happy Meal combinations shown in advertising, the vast majority of possible Happy Meals are nutritionally inappropriate for children.
This is important because (as documented in my book, Appetite for Profit) McDonald’s, along with every other major food company, has been hiding behind the veil of self-regulation of marketing to children for years. And sadly, the federal government has so far been going along with the charade. This lawsuit could become one way to expose this ruse, and even lay the groundwork for changing the laws to protect children. Because companies fear lawsuits even more than they fear regulation, the case could be a game-changer.
McDonald’s response in the press has been to defend the Happy Meal, not surprisingly. William Whitman, vice president of communications for McDonald’s USA, told Nation’s Restaurant News: “We are proud of our Happy Meal, which gives our customers wholesome food and toys of the highest quality and safety. Getting a toy is just one part of a fun, family experience at McDonald’s.”
It’s all fun until someone gets hurt. Chicken McNuggets are wholesome? Here are the ingredients, as listed on McDonald’s own website:
White boneless chicken, water, food starch-modified, salt, seasoning (autolyzed yeast extract, salt, wheat starch, natural flavoring (botanical source), safflower oil, dextrose, citric acid, rosemary), sodium phosphates, seasoning (canola oil, mono- and diglycerides, extractives of rosemary). Battered and breaded with: water, enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), yellow corn flour, food starch-modified, salt, leavening (baking soda, sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate, calcium lactate), spices, wheat starch, whey, corn starch. Prepared in vegetable oil (Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to preserve freshness). Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent.
That last ingredient sounds especially wholesome.
Toys of the highest quality and safety, like those toxic Shrek glasses?
As I wrote about here in April, the Santa Clara County, Calif., Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance to stop chain restaurants from using toys or other kid-oriented incentives to market unhealthy meals. This case is a logical next step and is certainly more efficient than going county by county to get fast food chains to halt this insidious practice. Of course, this case will only be about McDonald’s, for now. Other food chains (think Burger King) that don’t want to be next may be forced to re-think their kids marketing practices as well.
Of course, already the potential case is already being attacked by those who say it’s all up to parents. CSPI’s executive director Michael Jacobson responds to the parental argument this way:
I’m sure that industry’s defenders will blame parents for not saying ‘no’ to their children. Parents do bear much of the responsibility, but multi-billion-dollar corporations make parents’ job nearly impossible by giving away toys and bombarding kids with slick advertising.
So will this case mean the end of all toys in Happy Meals or will CSPI settle for McDonald’s setting nutrition standards on those meals the company markets with toys? CSPI’s not saying, but Michael Jacobson did say in the press release that “regardless of the nutritional quality of what’s being sold, the practice of tempting kids with toys is inherently deceptive.” I couldn’t agree more.
McDonald’s has 30 days (from June 22) to stop marketing with toys before a case is filed. I asked Steve Gardner today if he’s heard back from McDonald’s yet and here’s what he said:
We’ve gotten an acknowledgment from McDonald’s that they got the letter, but no response to the suggestion that we discuss before suit is filed. One thing is certain: if McDonald’s chooses not to negotiate, we will sue.
And that’s when things will get interesting. For those who think lawsuits are too extreme, consider this: We have only three branches of government, and two have been failing us for too long. The executive branch, even with Obama at the helm, has shown little interest in fixing the problem of junk food marketing to children. And the legislative branch (aka Congress) has been bought out by corporate interests for decades. That leaves only the judicial branch, which is why this case make sense, and why it was only a matter of time until someone sued over this issue.
Meantime, you can take action by sending an email message to McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner asking the company to stop marketing toys to kids. You can also join a related campaign by Corporate Accountability International asking McDonald’s to Retire Ronald.
How Did PepsiCo’s CEO Infiltrate the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Annual Report on Obesity?
Because I tend to focus my attention on news being generated by the major food companies, I don’t always pay close attention to the latest scary reports on obesity data. So when the annual report called F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies are Failing America came out this week, I just thought, Oh there’s that report again with the awful name, with the same gloomy numbers as last year.
But then I got an interesting email message forwarded from New York University professor and food politics maven Marion Nestle that made me realize I should pay closer attention to this year’s report. The email was from Harold Goldstein, executive director of the highly effective non-profit, California Center for Public Health Advocacy. He was questioning how the CEO of PepsiCo was given 2 pages of airtime in the report. What was that? The CEO of a major company contributing to the very facts and figures contained within the 124-page document was offered space to make her case?
Under the heading, “A Personal Perspective,” here is just a sampling of what PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi had to say: (her entire missive is on pages 44-5 of the report)
At the heart of America’s obesity epidemic us achieving a balance between the calories we put into our bodies and the calories we burn. It’s a simple equation but a complex challenge that companies must help their employees and consumers to overcome….
We firmly believe companies have a responsibility to provide consumers with more information and more choices so they can make better decisions… I believe the food industry can play a leading role in this area. In fact, we must play a leading role… It’s a challenge, but increasingly PepsiCo and other companies recognize and accept our responsibility to help our associates and consumers succeed.
OK, so this rhetoric is certainly nothing new and on its own reads like the usual PR-speak that we’ve come to expect from the likes of the maker of Cheetos and Mountain Dew. But let’s place these remarks into context. This report, which has been published annually for the past seven years, is put out by the organization, Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) a fairly well-known public health nonprofit based in Washington, DC. Obesity is one of TFAH’s several issue areas and they describe themselves as a “non-partisan organization dedicated to saving lives by protecting the health of every community and working to make disease prevention a national priority.” Noble enough.
This report gets a lot of press each year and is especially popular for how it ranks each state according to its obesity statistics. It also provides federal and state policy progress in a variety of areas, is fairly comprehensive, and relies heavily on government sources. In other words, the document makes a major contribution to the national conversation regarding obesity prevention and public policy.
Moreover, the report is co-published by its funder, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) the nation’s largest healthcare foundation. One of RWJF’s most ambitious goals is to “reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015.” Since 2007, the foundation has backed that up with an impressive $500 million in grants to myriad programs around the nation. These days, it’s hard to run into a childhood obesity prevention program that isn’t funded by RWJF.
So how did the nation’s largest healthcare funder and a prominent public health organization let the nation’s largest food company get airtime in their annual obesity report? Good question.
In the introduction to the report is this attempted explanation: “TFAH asked the following policy-makers and experts in the field of obesity to offer their perspectives on what needs to be done to address the obesity crisis in the United States.” And then PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi is listed among other contributors including Senator Tom Harkin and Kelly Brownell, director of Yale’s Rudd Center on Food Policy and Obesity. That’s quite a coup, for CEO Nooyi to be listed among the very same experts who are fighting PepsiCo’s lobbying efforts.
Reporter Melanie Warner, who just published an excellent piece about this at BNET, (Obesity Report Chronicles the Sad State of America — and Tells Us How Great PepsiCo Is) asked TFAH to explain itself. Here is what she learned:
Laura Segal, spokesperson for the Trust for America’s Health, says that having Nooyi’s comments in the report was an innocent attempt to have the “industry perspective” and not the result of any shady financial relationship. “We reached out to a number of companies and Pepsi was the first one to respond. We want to represent a range of opinions and the industry segment is a significant component of dealing with obesity,” says Segal.
Harold Goldstein (who gets the credit for first sounding the alarm) sees this incident as part of a troubling trend:
There seems to be a growing interest among public health organizations to appear “unbiased” when discussing obesity prevention by providing a forum for industry. It would be the equivalent of providing a forum for the tobacco industry to espouse their “personal responsibility” message in reports on smoking-related deaths.
As a national public health organization, I would have hoped TFAH would provide a clear and scientifically based public health perspective on issues like personal responsibility, rather than simply providing a forum for dissenting perspectives.
Also, the placement of the PepsiCo text is either suspect or ironic. It comes right after two pages describing recent efforts by various states to enact soda taxes, a contentious issue that PepsiCo lobbies hard against, despite mounting evidence that it may be one of the most effective policies available. Recognizing the connection, Harold Goldstein describes what Nooyi left out of her statement:
She doesn’t mention the highly sophisticated multimillion dollar national marketing and lobbying campaign they have undertaken to promote themselves as good corporate citizens and undermine efforts to establish state and local policies to reduce consumption of sugar sweetened beverages, which have been the single leading contributor to the obesity epidemic.
It’s bad enough when the government invites industry executives to “workshops” on food marketing, and for years we have seen corporate sponsorships of nonprofits such as the American Heart Association and the American Dietetic Association. But this hurts even more, because it was unexpected. If we can’t even read a major public health report on obesity data and policy solutions without running into a PR statement by Big Food, then no place is safe.
As Melanie Warner points out: “the inclusion of Nooyi’s remarks in a public health report feels a bit like if Congress were to suddenly decide to give BP several pages with which to defend itself in forthcoming congressional reports on the oil spill.”
While most of the information contained within the report may still be reliable, the fact that PepsiCo was allowed to participate also raises the question, what other editorial decisions were made that might have been favorable to the food industry? We’ll never know, and that’s the heart of the problem: Once the door is open to providing industry a forum in a public health context, no longer can we trust that we are getting the best information available from those sources.
Finally, I asked Marion Nestle for her reaction:
By this time, research has clearly demonstrated that partnerships and alliances of health organizations with food companies benefits the food companies far more than the health organizations. The goals of public health and food companies differ. Food companies enter such alliances for public relations and to deflect public attention from the need to regulate their marketing practices. RWJF ought to be well aware of the risk of such alliances and to protect its integrity against them.
What do you think? It would be great to hear from RWJF grantees. You can make comments on this blog anonymously if you prefer.
Big Food pledge placates White House – Who needs policy when you’ve got promises?
You’ve got to hand it to the food industry. They certainly know how to get the attention of the White House just when they need it most. As announced today by Michelle Obama herself, the nation’s leading food companies have made yet another pledge, this one in the form of an agreement signed with the Partnership for a Healthier America, an off-shoot of the First Lady’s Let’s Move campaign.
Mrs. Obama said that 16 corporations accounting for up to 25 percent of the American food supply chain would trim a total of one trillion calories by 2012 and 1.5 trillion calories by 2015. Sounds impressive, but I am not really sure exactly what it means. Trim calories, from what? OK, to be fair, here’s how the press release attempts to explain it:
Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation manufacturing companies will pursue their calorie reduction goal by developing and introducing lower-calorie options, changing recipes where possible to lower the calorie content of current products, or reducing portion sizes of existing single-serve products.
First off, who is the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation? Good question, certainly sounds official, but a quick perusal of the website reveals a virtual who’s who of Big Food: Coca-Cola, General Mills, Kraft Foods, and of course, PepsiCo, whose CEO Indra Nooyi serves as vice chair. (Kellogg’s CEO got the top spot and was at today’s White House briefing, see leadership.)
And you gotta love this mission statement: “Our mission is to try to help reduce obesity – especially childhood obesity – by 2015.” Try to help? Reduce? Especially? Sounds pretty lame. But I digress.
The member companies are pledging to do three things: One, develop and introduce lower-calorie options. But if they are making new products, isn’t that actually adding calories to the food supply? Next, for current products, where possible they will lower calorie content. When is it not possible? Why, when Big Food says so, that’s when.
Finally, they will reduce portion sizes. Now all of the member companies are packaged food manufacturers, not restaurants, where portion sizes are out of control and where Americans spend roughly half of their food dollars. So this just means that we might get more products like the current “100-calorie packs,” which just encourages more packaging waste, at higher prices to boot.
As this is just another voluntary promise by industry, how will we even know if the companies follow through? No worries, they thought of everything. As the press release explains, under the agreement, “the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation will report annually to the Partnership on the progress that we are making toward this pledge.” So I guess that should cover it.
What’s going on here should be obvious to anyone who has been paying close attention to food industry tactics over the past few years. It’s certainly no coincidence that this announcement comes on the heels of last week’s report from the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity. Indeed, with less than 5 business days in between the two media events, the memory of that comprehensive report, containing 70 policy recommendations is now conveniently overshadowed by Big Food’s promise of 1.5 trillion fewer calories. That’s industry math: 1.5 trillion beats 70.
But before we toss the Task Force report into the historical dust bin, let’s see which policy recommendations might have gotten Big Food upset. First there’s # 2.6: “All media and entertainment companies should limit the licensing of their popular characters to food and beverage products that are healthy.” Uh oh, that could mean no more SpongeBob Squarepants Popsicles, that would stink.
Then there’s # 2.7: “The food and beverage industry and the media and entertainment industry should jointly adopt meaningful, uniform nutrition standards for marketing food and beverages to children, as well as a uniform standard for what constitutes marketing to children.” Meaningful? Uniform? Those are dirty words to Big Food. They prefer words like “try” and “reduce.”
Oh and they really don’t like recommendation # 2.9: “If voluntary efforts to limit the marketing of less healthy foods and beverages to children do not yield substantial results, the FCC could consider revisiting and modernizing rules on commercial time during children’s programming.” What was that, the FCC? Why, that’s an actual government agency named in the report, how did that happen?
Food companies that market to children (including pledgers Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, and PepsiCo) are afraid that Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign might result in actual policy making, otherwise known as laws and regulations, those things that government agencies make when they are doing their jobs.
Every so often, when the threat of government regulation rears its ugly head, the food industry pounces on it to beat it down, by announcing new and improved promises, pledges, commitments, initiatives, partnerships, or coalitions at just the right time, all aimed at keeping government at bay and the public convinced that they are acting responsibly.
Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center on Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University called it right when he told the Wall Street Journal that this move was little more than public relations:
This is where the market is taking these companies anyway, and I don’t know that this represents much of a concession. I also believe that the motive behind this is to fight off government regulation by creating the appearance of voluntary changes by the industry.
Sadly, this time industry made sure that government came on board even before the announcement. At the press conference, Michelle Obama predicted, “In the weeks and months to come, we expect to hear more announcements regarding specific steps on reducing sugar, fat and sodium in the foods that our children eat.” Great, brace yourself for even more PR and empty promises.
If I was skeptical about the likely success of Let’s Move before, I am downright cynical now.
Post-script: For a somewhat less cynical viewpoint, see Marion Nestle’s blog post.
Santa Clara County Begins the Fast Food Toy Rebellion – Parents Rejoice!
Any parent who has ever driven by a McDonald’s with little ones in the back seat knows how hard it can be to resist the lobbying, often made even worse due to the marketing of toys with Happy Meals. And of course, other fast food chains also lure kids in with the latest installment of some toy series, often tied to the latest blockbuster movie.
I’ve been saying for years that it’s only a matter of time until some city or county figures out that a simple change in law is all that’s needed to make such promotions illegal at the local level. (Localities have tremendous public health authority that is often underutilized.) On Tuesday, it finally happened, and I am proud to say, in a county in my home state of California.
Yesterday, I posted the press release from Santa Clara County Supervisor (and Board President) Ken Yeager’s office celebrating the passage of an ordinance that limits to use of toys and other incentives to fast food that meet certain nutrition criteria. As Supervisor Yeager put it:
This ordinance levels the playing field. It helps parents make the choices they want for their children without toys and other freebies luring them toward food that fails to meet basic nutritional standards.
There’s no doubt that luring kids with toys works. The Federal Trade Commission estimated that restaurants sold 1.2 billion meals accompanied by toys to children under 12 in 2006 alone. Further, a 2008 study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest identified 12 restaurants with kids’ meal offerings that routinely exceed the recommended caloric limits for children. Ten out of 12 of those restaurants offer toys with their kids’ meals.
Now, let’s look at the details of this law, since that often gets lost on the press. It’s not just about toys, it’s about a number of “incentives” and here is how that word is defined:
any toy, game, trading card, admission ticket or other consumer product, whether physical or digital…or any coupon, voucher, ticket, token, code, or password redeemable for or granting digital or other access to [those items previously mentioned.]
And here are some of the nutrition standards that limit the use of such incentives:
More than two hundred (200) calories for a Single Food Item, or more than four-hundred eighty-five (485) calories for a Meal;
More than four-hundred and eighty milligrams (480 mg) of sodium for a Single Food Item, or more than six hundred milligrams (600 mg) of sodium for a Meal;
More than thirty-five percent (35%) of total calories from fat.
Now I don’t think that toys should ever be used as food incentives, regardless of the nutrition standards, and I am concerned about the message that fast food companies should market “healthy food” to kids, but this is a still good start and we have to start somewhere.
So how important is this new law, given that it only applies to the unincorporated areas of one county? I can almost hear the shrugged shoulders and people saying, there goes California again, that wacky state. While Santa Clara County may be just an hour south of San Francisco, and is known for being out in front when it comes to public health, with increasing recognition of the health problems related to childhood obesity and poor eating habits in general, we are probably seeing the beginning of the end for fast food companies using toys to hook kids.
First of all, Santa Clara County was also a leader on menu labeling, along with San Francisco. That idea then trickled up to Sacramento, and California became the first state to enact a similar law. And recently, a federal law passed requiring restaurant chains to post basic nutrition information.
Also, Santa Clara is the home of San Jose, the third largest city in California with more than 7 million residents. While this ordinance does not cover San Jose (due to jurisdictional limitations), if the city council takes up the issue there, it would have a huge impact. Meanwhile other cities known for cutting-edge food policies such as San Francisco and New York, are taking notice. Anyone could be next, and of course, it’s just this domino effect that scares the pants off of Ronald McDonald.
So what happens now? Just like they did with the menu labeling ordinance, it seems likely that the restaurant industry will file a lawsuit, if for no other reason than to scare other cities and counties away from enacting similar bills. Industry could try to challenge the law on First Amendment grounds, but targeting small children with toys and fast food does not exactly sound like protected free speech.
Indeed, I asked the Santa Clara County Counsel’s office if they expect a lawsuit, and here is what Acting County Counsel Miguel Marquez told me today:
I wouldn’t be surprised if the restaurant industry sued the County, but we are confident that any case they bring would be unsuccessful. The California Restaurant Association asserted First Amendment challenges to the menu labeling requirements Santa Clara County (and other localities) adopted two years ago, but they now tout menu labeling as an important service they provide to their customers. We hope the restaurant industry would instead put its resources into designing effective ways to promote healthy eating for children.
So just like with menu labeling, a lawsuit is likely to just be a temporary setback. And, by way of responding to those who might think the County has over-reached, he added:
Local government plays an important role in advancing public health. The restaurant industry often works against parents by luring children into developing a taste for unhealthy foods.
Amen. We need more local leadership like that being displayed by Santa Clara. It’s only a matter of time before McDonald’s and friends sees the writing on the wall and realizes they will have to stop this insidious marketing strategy or risk very bad public relations. And when they do, industry is sure to take all the credit, claim to be responsible corporate partners, and act like they planned it all along.
You can read the full text of the law here and for good local coverage, see the San Jose Mercury News.
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