Preventive Medicine: Reforms by Kellogg a Beginning

Summary

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The Kellogg Co. announced last week, to considerable media fanfare, that it would place voluntary restrictions on its marketing to children. This restraint is intended to help the ads for cereals containing spoons full of sugar go down at a time of ominous and fast-worsening rates of childhood obesity and diabetes, and to avoid a lawsuit threatened by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, and two Massachusetts parents. As much about self-defense as public health, the Kellogg initiative is a good start, but much more needs to be done. Kellogg has committed to reformulate some products so that they are more nutritious, and to avoid marketing less nutritious products in TV, radio, print or Web site ads that reach audiences at least half of whom are under age 12. The criteria products need to meet to be considered suitably nutritious are: less than 200 calories per serving; no trans fat and no more than 2 grams of saturated fat; no more than 230 milligrams of sodium (for some reason, Eggo frozen waffles are exempted from this one); and no more than 12 grams of sugar, not counting sugar from fruit, dairy and vegetables.

It occurs to me, as it may to you, that at least one rather important criterion is missing from this list. Namely: what WILL be in these allegedly more nutritious foods? Will they be a concentrated source of whole grain goodness? Will they provide a generous amount of fiber? We don't know. All we know is that whatever they contain, it will be somewhat less sugary, salty and fatty than before. This is not a highly robust definition of nutritious.

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Preventive Medicine: Reforms by Kellogg a Beginning

But any restraint practiced in the realm of food marketing to children is welcome. The practice has become highly contentious, as evidenced by the lawsuit threatened against Kellogg, and has been getting a lot of attentio...

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