By HEATHER GILLERS, Medill News Service

WASHINGTON --- Iowa kids tempted by junk food commercials are often too young to watch what they eat. But if ad agencies don't market treats responsibly, the U.S. government may start watching what they sell.

That's what Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, told a Washington conference of ad executives Tuesday morning. The senator said he would push for federal regulation of junk food ads aired during children's programming, if ad agencies did not limit the commercials.

"It's nonsensical to say that kids have a personal responsibility to resist the lures of advertising," Harkin said.

Regulating commercials could improve the health of children in Black Hawk County, about 30 percent of whom are overweight, said Arlene Prather-O'Kane program manager of the child and adolescent division of Black Hawk County Board of Health.

"We're bombarding (children) with all kinds of ads to 'eat this because it's cool,'" Prather-O'Kane said.

Prather-O'Kane and Harkin both said poor nutrition and sedentary lifestyles bear responsibility for childhood obesity. But advertisers, they said, are guilty as well.

"Corporate America doesn't spend $12 billion a year on advertising aimed at children because it likes to waste money," Harkin said. "It spends $12 billion because that advertising works brilliantly --- because it persuades children to demand --- to the point of throwing temper tantrums, if necessary, a regular diet of candy, cookies, sugary cereal, sodas and all manner of junk food."

Americans seem to share Harkin's views. More than two thirds see advertising to children as a "major contributor" to childhood obesity, and 55 percent believe government should more strictly regulate ads to kids, a Wall Street Journal poll found in February.

Wallace Snyder, president of the American Advertising Federation and an Iowa native, believes current regulation of advertising is sufficient.

"I'm not so sure there's a need for any particular changes (in the law)," said Snyder, who hails from Belle Plaine.

Snyder thinks heightened awareness of childhood obesity is the senator's goal.

"It's not really more regulation, and it's not congressional legislation," he said.

Federal legislation already penalizes advertisers that misrepresent products and caps the amount of ad time available during children's programming. But it does not regulate which products are advertised during kids' shows, said a spokeswoman for Harkin's office.

Despite the senator's efforts, University of Northern Iowa professor Mary Jane Sheffet doesn't think Congress will ever regulate junk food commercials.

"You've got lobbyists for food, you've got lobbyists for advertising," said Sheffet, who is head of the marketing department at the College of Business Administration. "My personal opinion is that that (law) wouldn't pass."

Whoever controls the commercials during children's programming holds considerable sway over Iowa kids' diets, judging from county health studies that found children respond strongly to how food is presented. In one case, Prather-O'Kane said, the Black Hawk Board of Health found that kids chose snacks based on the packaging --- not the food inside.

Moreover, a local experiment by Harkin has shown that when healthy food is made available and attractive to children, they wolf it down. Two years ago, Harkin secured funding for Hoover Middle School and McKinstry Elementary School to offer students free fruits and vegetables to snack on throughout the day.

At the end of the trial, Harkin said, the schools begged, "Please don't take this away."

Harkin continued the program, and both he and the Black Hawk County Board of Health hopes ad agencies will follow his lead.

"Hopefully, some of these marketing agencies are going to realize we can market fresh foods and vegetables and healthy items," Prather-O'Kane said.

Contact Heather Gillers at h-gillers@northwestern.edu.

http://www.confectionerynews.com/news/news-ng.asp?id=59194

04/06/2005 - Democrat Senator Tom Harkin yesterday sent a strong message to the food industry, saying that it must move swiftly to stop the advertising aimed at children that was creating a "botched" generation.

His speech was given at a joint conference of the American Advertising Federation, the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Association of National Advertisers.

Harkin made it clear to the advertisers that if they did nothing to reduce or even stop advertising to children, then the only way forward would be to instigate legislation.

“When it comes to the advertising and marketing of food to children, it is still my hope that real restraint will come from within your industry...obviating the need for further federal regulation," he said.

It is well documented that America is in the grip of an obesity crisis, Harkin said that 15 percent of American children and teenagers are obese, "a higher rate than in any other industrialized country". However, he said that there was added urgency to do something with new evidence that today’s young generation could be the first to suffer a shorter lifespan than the one that preceded it.

“The alarms are going off, one after another. Yet, we keep hitting the snooze button."

He said that inactivity and poor nutrition were together contributing to the obesity crisis, but that children were consuming more calories and more foods high in sugar, fat, and salt because they taste good, are available everywhere and are "being aggressively advertised and marketed".

He added : “Corporate America...spends $12 billion [on advertising aimed at children] because that advertising works brilliantly because it persuades children to demand – to the point of throwing temper tantrums, if necessary – a regular diet of candy, cookies, sugary cereal, sodas, and all manner of junk food".

Children under the age of eight are unable to tell the difference between a TV program and a commercial and parents should not have to sit there watching children’s shows to check whether there are any offending ads, said Harkin.

“Not even schools are safe havens anymore. There is Channel One, with ads for candy bars and sugary sodas. There are giant Coke machines that double as billboards, right in the school hallway or cafeteria."

He cited a Wall Street Journal poll from February that had found that 68 percent of American adults believe that advertising to kids is a major contributor to the rising tide of obesity in children and that a clear majority said government should do more to regulate food ads directed at children.

Stephanie Childs from the Grocery Manufacturers of America recently told FoodNavigatorUSA.com that she believed that most food companies practised responsible advertising that complies with the Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU), meaning that, for example, if a snack is being advertised the "right size serving is shown in the right context".

Harkin admitted that the "CARU has done some good things" and was at least an acknowledgement by the advertising industry that irresponsible food marketing to children is a very real problem, but he did not think that it went far enough.

"CARU is not cutting it. It has no legal authority – and it has no teeth."

Harkin wants the advertising industry to sit down with the food and broadcasting companies to "hammer out tough, rigorous, age-appropriate standards to govern the marketing of junk food to children. And create an enforcement body that has independence and teeth."

The senator had already announced last month that he planned to propose a bill enabling the FTC to regulate food advertising to children.

"The Harkin bill would restore the FTC’s power to regulate advertising for children - taken away during the cavity epidemic of the 1980s to save food companies from suffering restrications - but it would be up to the FTC to decide how and what to regulate," Allison Dobson, Harkin's spokeswoman, explained to FoodNavigatorUSA.com.

She added at the time that Harkin also planned to table a second bill, which would allow the secretary of agriculture to prohibit junk food advertising in schools.

The ban on food advertising to children is a stance supported by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) that has already drawn up guidelines suggesting that only "products that may not be nutritionally ideal but that provide some positive nutritional benefit and that could help children meet the dietary guidelines" should be advertised to children.

"Companies should not conduct general brand marketing aimed at children for brands under which more than half of the products are of poor nutritional quality," believes the organization.

Michael Jacobson, executive director of the CSPI, added: "Ideally the food manufacturers should limit their advertising, but they can’t control themselves. Therefore, it will fall to government to come up with some rules".

The GMA, on the other hand, naturally takes a less rigid approach, affirming that steps are already in place to make sure children see only the right sort of advertising and thinks it is nonsense to suggest children upto the age of 18 need to be protected from food advertising.

"We do not support a ban on advertising food products. A ban would not be the right solution," said Childs. Instead, she said that the organization would be looking at what is working in then present system and building on that.

Dobson admitted that there were ongoing improvements in the food industry, but felt they were "small steps". "If they had happened 10 years ago they might have brought us somewhere," she said, adding that more drastic action is needed.

The GMA, however, believes that the food industry is taking huge steps forward. "GMA members have introduced thousands of new and reformulated products that are lower in saturated and trans fats, sodium and sugar," said Manly Molpus, CEO of the GMA.

Advertisers Say Food-Ad Strictures Unfair, Ineffective
April 06, 2005
By Todd Shields (MediaWeek)

The Association of National Advertisers, reacting Wednesday to proposals from Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), said restrictions on food marketing would not help stem the nation’s growing obesity rate.

“We are extremely disappointed by the recurrent charges and finger-pointing of Senator Harkin regarding food advertising and marketing to children,” said Bob Liodice, president and CEO of the ANA. Liodice said advertisers take care not to unfairly market to children, and to educate the public about healthy lifestyles.

Harkin wants legislation to limit the marketing of junk food to children. One measure would grant the Federal Trade Commission authority to regulate marketing to children. Another would ban junk food advertising in schools. Similar legislation introduced last year by Harkin failed in the Republican-dominated Congress.

“Parent’s choices about their children’s eating habits are undermined by junk food ads every day,” Harkin said last month as he announced his intention to again seek legislation.

The senator repeated the theme in remarks on Tuesday to a conference in Washington sponsored by the ANA, the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the American Advertising Federation.

The groups sent a follow-up letter to Harkin. “Bans or restrictions on food marketing are unlikely to be effective in combating obesity,” the groups said, asserting that such measures have proven ineffective in other nations.