New research shows that the US government and schools have only achieved a mixed progress in its extensive quest to address food and beverage marketing practices that are harmful to young people’s health.

According to a thorough review in the March issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, public sector stakeholders have failed to fully implement recommendations from the Institute of Medicine (IOM,) to support a healthful diet to children and adolescents.

Lead author Vivica Kraak, MS, RD, a Research Fellow at Deakin University’s Population Health Strategic Research Center in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia declares:

“Evidence links the marketing of high-calorie, nutrient-poor branded food and beverage products to obesity rates. Our evaluation found that the prevailing marketing environment continues to threaten children’s health and the public sector has missed important opportunities to promote a healthful diet and create healthy eating environments.”

The IOM established in a study, requested by Congress in 2004, that children and adolescents are influenced by food marketing to prefer, request, and consume foods and beverages that are high in calories and poor in nutrients. By December 2005, a report was published by an expert IOM committee, listing 10 recommendations for public and private-sector stakeholders to promote healthy eating in children and adolescents.

Kraak, and her team, carried out an extensive literature review of the evidence to establish the progress made, regarding the 5 recommendations the report had listed for the public sector. The other 5 recommendations aimed at industry stakeholders were evaluated in a separate publication in September 2011.

After assessing 80 data sources, including published articles, enacted legislation, and 5 years of media coverage from late 2005 to early 2011, the findings revealed that none of the public sector groups had made any extensive progress. For instance, according to the report’s recommendation, the government should collaborate with the private sector in creating a long-term, multifaceted, and financially sustained social marketing program to support parents, caregivers, and families to promote a healthful diet, however there has been no progress whatsoever.

Lori E. Dorfman, Dr PH, of the Berkeley Media Studies Group in Berkeley, CA declared in a linked comment:

“Our government is ceding education about nutrition to the food and beverage industry, which spends $2 billion annually – more than $5 million every day – inundating children with enticements to eat and drink high-fat, sugary and salty foods, and sugar-sweetened beverages.”

The most positive results were made by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), educational leaders, as well as state and local schools, who jointly achieved a moderate progress in developing nutritional standards for foods and beverages sold in school, and adopting model school wellness policies and practices to make healthy foods and beverages more widely available, as recommended in the IOM food marketing report.

The competitive food guidelines and stricter nutrition standards that the USDA wanted to achieve have been implemented in many states, whilst by 2010, 23 states supported the farm-to-school programs in comparison to just 1 state in 2005. However, regardless of these efforts schools continued to market the large availability of unhealthy competitive foods, particularly for older students, as well as high-calorie, nutrient-poor foods for celebrations and school fundraisers until early 2011.

Dr. Story commented:

“It is notable that USDA made some progress to promote healthier meals during the period reviewed. USDA has accelerated progress immensely with the new school meal nutrition standards released in January 2012.”

Grants have been made available to states and local communities by the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 and the American Recovery Act of 2009, to increase the availability of fruit and vegetables for children. However, federal, state, and local governments failed to use their full potential to implement the IOM food marketing report recommendations. The researchers discovered that the government did not use all available policy tools to fund initiatives for promoting healthy eating, compared to its spending on diet-related chronic diseases, such as subsidies for healthy foods and taxes for unhealthy foods and beverages.

The IOM report highlighted the need to investigate new promotional strategies and venues, for instance, digital interactive internet marketing for children, healthier foods, smaller portion sizes, product viability, and the affects of TV advertising on young people’s diet quality and diet-related health.

The study showed that Congress inadequately funded federal research institutions like the National Institutes of Health and the USDA to conduct extensive research on the impacts of marketing practices on young people’s diets.

The researchers recommend the following actions:

  • Congress could support the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to cover all food and beverage products marketed to children through the 2010 Menu-Labeling Law (as candy companies and movie theaters are exempt).
  • Regardless of the industry lobbying to stall efforts, Congress could support the federal Interagency Working Group for Food Marketed to Children to complete and release robust voluntary nutrition standards for industry marketing to children and adolescents.
  • Congress could empower the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to control misleading or deceptive industry practices that promote high-calorie, nutrient poor food and beverage products aimed at young people.

Kraak recommends:

“Congress could also empower the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to develop new rules for advertising and commercial promotion during children’s programming. If industry’s voluntary efforts continue to show unabated unhealthy food and beverage marketing, FCC could pursue measures such as limiting interactive marketing of unhealthy products, prohibiting unhealthy product placement in programs with a substantial child audience, and reducing the minutes per hour of advertising allowed for TV programs with a high proportion of child viewers.”

Dr. Dorfman argues:

“Food companies have railed against even voluntary guidelines for what foods should be marketed to kids, spending $37 million to lobby Congress to weaken science-based recommendations from the Interagency Working Group for Food Marketed to Children. Yet the companies continue to aggressively market the sugary, salty foods kids should avoid. It seems that the companies need the very advice that the recommendations will provide. Now more than ever we need the Interagency Working Group guidelines to strengthen our national commitment to address how food is marketed to children.”

Written by: Petra Rattue