OAKLAND, Calif. — The one-year anniversary of the first lady’s Let’s Move campaign to “end childhood obesity within a generation” was marked by celebratory speeches and fanfare — much of it generated by the White House itself.
It’s certainly true that Michelle Obama has been tremendously successful in summoning both the resources of her office as well as her own positive energy and enthusiasm to get the nation to focus its attention on this important problem.
She also deserves credit for specific gains made in the past year, including championing school food and shining a light on the serious problem of “food deserts,” neighborhoods that lack even a basic grocery store, let alone a farmers’ market.
However, her highly touted “Let’s Move” campaign can make no claims of progress in combating the 800-pound gorilla in America’s dining rooms: Junk food marketing to children.
While Mrs. Obama may have elevated the national conversation about childhood obesity, that discourse has actually been going on for almost a decade now.
In 2006, a damning report from the Institute of Medicine on food marketing to kids called upon Congress to act within two years if industry made no significant improvements on its own.
In the wake of that threat, food companies made many promises to clean up their act; commitments were announced, self-regulatory bodies were formed. It all sounded very impressive.
And yet recent reports coming out of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University as well as the government’s own Federal Trade Commission, continue to document ubiquitous junk food and fast-food marketing to children.
Just take a stroll down the cereal aisle and you can find such childhood-obesity-inducing products as Cupcake Cereal and Cookie Crisp Sprinkles Cereal. Even Cheerios now comes in a chocolate variety.
A sure sign of how small a threat “Let’s Move” is to the food industry is just how eager companies have been to jump onto its bandwagon.
Most successful was Wal-Mart, which recently gained Mrs. Obama’s endorsement of the company’s 5-year plan to improve the quality of its foods. Merits of the announcement aside, particularly troubling was that the first lady’s staff had been meeting in secret with Wal-Mart executives for months, negotiating the final — albeit vague terms of the plan.
Negotiated deals with the likes of Wal-Mart cannot become a substitute for actual policymaking. As messy and as imperfect as the democratic process is, it needs to be based on serious policy _ not public relations gestures — to work well.
Meanwhile, it seems clear that the Obama administration is unwilling to seriously address junk-food marketing. One idea is to have the government suggest guidelines for industry. In December 2009, a taskforce of several federal agencies did just that — releasing draft nutrition guidelines on the marketing food to children. Apparently, this meager first step — it would be entirely voluntary — set off such alarm bells within the food industry that we haven’t heard a peep from the task force since.
Instead of meaningful government actions, we have only “Let’s Move” and more voluntary industry promises.
Solving the complex problems of childhood obesity won’t be solved with cute slogans or deal-making with the likes of Wal-Mart. To win this battle, we need our political leaders to take on seriously the politics of marketing junk-food to our children.
• Simon is a public health attorney and author of “Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back.”
Comments (13)
Add commentI love typos in headlines!
I love typos in headlines!
First of all
It's only been one year in a campaign that is supposed to happen "within a generation", so I think you're jumping the gun here.
Secondly - I feel badly for children whose parents don't teach them good eating habits (maybe they weren't taught themselves) but it is up to the individual to monitor what types of foods they purchase and feed to their children. Read labels. Discuss healthy eating habits with your kids. Exercise with your kids. I don't think you can legislate whether or not someone has one chocolate chip cookie with lunch, or 5.
Kara is right......
and there are many who would fight any government regulation to lower salt content in food, do away with red dye #4, or replace 'bad' oils in fryers with 'better' oils - no matter what, just because it's a government regulation.
On the other hand, it's true that even with mostly healthy choices, you can't regulate how much cheese or butter someone will eat.
I think we could do some things, including mandatory education programs for everyone collecting welfare or foodstamps, on how to manage a grocery/household budget, and how to cook/choose healthy foods. Making good food at home is cheaper than buying fast or prepackaged foods, a fact which I think is lost on folks who have not had the luxury to grow up in a household where they were taught how to cook, or how to manage a budget.
I'm most definitely not an
I'm most definitely not an Obama fan, but seriously, Kara is right. This is ONE year into a 25 YEAR plan. How about be happy someone is at least working on it!?!
Better parenting
Why does McDonalds have toys in Happy Meals? Why do junk cereals have so much marketing and flashy boxes? Because they sell. This is nothing but good, old fashioned marketing. How about if parents actually act like parents? Who makes the decisions on what and where to eat? Are the spoiled children dictating household decisions? Better have the government protect us.
When they control your body,
When they control your body, what's left?
swimmer, education is always the answer to encourage more personal responsibility. However, when one thinks like the progressives, education takes power away from the elites.
I think at no other time in history have we had so many good choices in what to eat. Look at how many kinds of bread and milk are available. Could you ever have imagined that there would be so many choices in the produce department?
Rather than the choices that people are making, I think it's the quantity and lack of exercise too. Look at the size of dinner plates in the 60's - they were tiny! My brother and I shared a can of Coke and a Hershey bar. We weren't slurping down Big Gulps and eating giant portions.
Calypso
I'm with you. Let’s not forget all the high energy drinks "Red Bull" for example. They are nothing but sugar. I'm not saying lets do away with these items, it's a product and it's legal. The children’s health falls on the parents shoulders not the Gov.
Calypso -
"Education takes power from the elites?" What the heck are you talking about? Too much kool-aid, my friend.
You are right on about the portions though. Just about any restaurant meal you get now for lunch can easily be cut in half and the rest saved for dinner. Americans have a strange idea as to what constitutes "value".
Jimcollman - I'm all for better parenting too. Here's the problem: as difficult as it is for you and I to understand - we have to recognize that there are whole sections of the population that didn't grow up the way that you and I did. Things we take for granted - like reading to young children at night, making sure a kid gets a couple of fruits/veggies every day instead of just cookies, or goes outside to play, learning to cook a meal, balance a checkbook, or pay attention to costs and lables and choices at the grocery store are NOT INHERENT BEHAVIORS. They are LEARNED. And we have generations of people now who never ate anything but fast food, don't cook, and don't exercise. Think about it: if your mom and dad never, EVER served salad at dinner, how likely would you be, really, to develop a taste for it? To make it and serve it to your kids? If mom and dad never said to you - "you have to eat your vegetable before you leave this table" are you going to say it to your kids? If mom and dad never exercised with you, or "made" you go ride your bike, how likely are you to enjoy or pass on exercise to your kids? Not very likely, is the answer.
Breaking that cycle is what will change our population. And education is the key.
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You're out of your element
@Alaskan Teacher: I'm having trouble following your train of thought. Clarify?
Education of Parents
I agree with several people here. If only the government would spend the time to educate parents on how to be better parents; it sounds horrible, but it's true!
If we as Americans expect all children to graduate with a high school diploma and know how to exhibit "American values," such as having a job, being a positive contributor to society/community, and being a law-abiding, healthy person --- well, then, we need to teach those values!
Some social issues campaigns have changed a generation of children. How about a similar campaign so that it becomes super embarrassing to stock unhealthy food in your home? I don't think it should be legislated...but social pressure is a powerful thing.
How about creating a program to inundate the advertising market, (especially the market favored by socioeconomic venues where poor eating habits are habitual,) until it becomes a social stigma to NOT have vegetables on the table at dinner? It was the same in the 80's with "Just Say No" and "Don't Drive Drunk." It took awhile, but it worked.
You can not legislate for
You can not legislate for better diet,..... you can not stop companies from selling and advertising bad food to kids, but you can make labeling of food be more up front on the packaging. Labels should include sugar and sodium content and what a serving size actually is in BIG print, so that people actually read and understand what they are buying. Right now this info is on there in such tiny print you can't hardly read it. While at the same time in big print in a prominent location it will say "All Natural", or some other worthless catch phrase, misleading ignorant shoppers into not realizing that that means nothing . Food can be cooked with the best olive oil and still be fattening and full of salt and chemicals. How many people eat a serving size of potato chips ?
ravensquak
Thank you for bringing up the meaningless "All Natural" label!! Everytime I see it, I cringe. Then I read the ingredients and 90% of the time, put it back on the shelf. It's surprising what kind of junk is "all natural".....