Breakfast is often touted as “the most important meal of the day,” but anyone with even a vague sense of how nutrition works could realize that eating food drenched in sugar isn’t the ideal way to get a person started for the day. But that’s the impression Kellogg’s was attempting to give by urging parents to buy its Rice Krispies cereal as a way to “support your child’s immunity,” and bragging that it was “clinically shown to improve kids’ attentiveness by nearly 20 percent.”
Now, after a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, Kellogg’s has abandoned the campaign, agreeing to stop advertising claims about its cereals’ abilities to improve cognitive health unless the claims are true and can be substantiated.
The agreement comes on the heels of aggressive efforts to change the way unhealthy products are marketed toward kids, in the fight to curb childhood obesity. The task force report released by Let’s Move, the organization spearheaded by Michelle Obama, admits that allowing companies that market food products toward children to self-regulate is ineffective; it suggests that the government needs to get more serious about regulating such ad campaigns: “The prospect of regulation or legislation has often served as a catalyst for driving meaningful reform in other industries and may do so in the context of food marketing as well.”
But products aimed at children aren’t the only ones to come under fire for misleading potential customers. KFC’s recent campaign to support breast cancer research didn’t necessarily bill its actual chicken as helpful toward fighting breast cancer – but it did so indirectly by implying that buying and eating chicken from its pink buckets would contribute toward breast cancer research funds – despite the fact that eating foods high in calories and fat is basically the definition of unhealthful eating.
The Obama administration has cracked down on numerous other companies for what it sees as false or misleading nutritional claims. It has sent warning letters to companies like Nestle over its Juicy Juice All Natural 100% Grape Juice product, for example, alleging that the label implies that the product contains 100 percent juice, when it in fact does not. Both the FTC and the Food and Drug Administration regulate health claims and nutrient content claims – essentially, claims have to be true, accurate and demonstrable. Kellogg’s has been criticized for making health claims before: Change.org last year succeeded in ending the “Smart Choices” labeling scheme, an industry wide initiative which appeared on many of Kellogg’s products, including its Froot Loops cereal.
The FTC’s action against Kellogg’s and the FDA’s warning letters to other companies over nutritional claims show that Obama and company are serious about overseeing a wide range of health goals – and thus bringing down health care costs and making it accessible for everyone.
by Sara Libby change.org
Tags: cereals, childhood obesity, kelloggs, lets move, lets move campaign, Michelle Obama, nutrition, rice krispies, Vitamin D
This entry was posted on Friday, June 11th, 2010 at 3:58 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.
