Save Cheerios Not Children? Why food industry self-regulation just isn’t going to work

When it comes to marketing to children, self-regulation is never going to work, and an article in the Wall Street Journal gets to the crux of why it won’t. Elaine Kolish, vice president and director of the food industry’s Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, told Congress that the voluntary nutritional standards proposed by a group of federal agencies for what could and could not be marketed to children were too strict. "There are very few products, period, that meet these standards, whether they're primarily consumed by adults or children.”

According to the article, Kolish said that, “General Mills Inc. would be unable to gear advertising for Cheerios cereal, with 190 milligrams of sodium per serving, to children because it has more sodium than the standards would allow.”

If Cheerios doesn’t meet public health standards for sodium, shouldn’t the burden be on General Mills to come up with a formula that does, rather than expecting the standards to be lowered to meet its product line? The food industry’s answer is a resounding “No.” The industry’s position is clear—profits trump children’s health. Which is why they shouldn’t be in charge of setting nutrition standards for anyone, let alone children.

The voluntary restrictions proposed by the federal agencies last December were supposed to be made public and available for comment before reaching Congress on July 15th, but that hasn’t happened yet. The reasons for the delay have also not been made public. When and if these voluntary restrictions are put it place, it will be interesting to see if Cheerios makes the list of foods acceptable to market to children.

I’m betting it will. Read more!

Consuming Everything: CCFC and the Oil Spill by Susan Linn, Ed.D

I know I'm not alone in my inability to stop thinking about that oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. Sometimes it's foremost in my thoughts, but often it's more in the background, like chronic anxiety, or some dull but persistent toothache. And, as we go about our daily work at CCFC, I'm thinking more than ever about sustainability and its links to our mission of reclaiming childhood from corporate marketers. We can't achieve a sustainable society without curbing consumption.

Lifetime consumer habits begin in childhood. That's one big reason why children are targeted so intensely with marketing and why it needs to stop. As Josh Golin and I wrote in a piece for the Huffington Post on Earth Day last year, "Marketing doesn't just sell children individual products. Its dominant message is that consumption is the path to happiness and self-fulfillment." Marketers sell consumption, not just as a lifestyle, but as the lifestyle. Limiting children's exposure to corporate marketing allows them the time and space to learn to take their pleasure in other people, nature, and their own creative play, rather than relying for satisfaction on the things that corporations sell. Children deserve a commercial-free childhood, and the earth deserves it as well.

So, while what may be the worst un-natural environmental disaster of all time unfolds, I am reminded that the commercialization of childhood affects so much more than families currently raising children. The primacy of marketplace values-and instilling those values into the next generation-imperils everyone. It's true that children benefit immediately and directly when we limit their exposure to commercial marketing. But the impact is so much broader. Allowing kids to grow up free from bombardment by marketing messages is our best chance to nurture adults who recognize the value of preserving, rather than exploiting, environmental riches-who define themselves more as stewards than consumers. By working for the rights of children to grow up-and the freedom for parents to raise them-without being undermined by commercialism, CCFC promotes a more sustainable world. Read more!