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CCFC’s Comments to the Federal Trade Commission:
Industry’s Experiment in Self-Regulation Has Failed
On July 14-15, the Federal Trade Commission will hold a workshop
on Marketing, Self-Regulation, and Childhood Obesity. In
preparation for the workshop, CCFC submitted comments that
declared the current system of advertising industry
self-regulation a failure. The comments were signed by fifteen
of CCFC’s member organizations. A summary of the comments
appears below; the complete text of the comments is available at
http://www.ftc.gov/os/comments/FoodMarketingtoKids/516960-00053.pdf
The advertising industry’s thirty-year experiment with
self-regulation has failed. Children see more marketing in
more venues than ever before and much of this marketing is for
unhealthy food. Child-targeted marketing influences children’s
food choices, contributes to the childhood obesity epidemic, and
makes parents’ lives more difficult.
The industries responsible for this marketing cannot fix
these problems without government restrictions; merely tweaking
the existing system of self-regulation is not the answer.
Far too often there is a conflict of interest between industry’s
mandate to make a profit – a legal mandate in the instance of
corporations – and public health and safety. Ultimately it is
the government’s role, not the role of corporations, to
safeguard the health of our children.
There is no doubt that food marketing is a factor in
children’s consumption of unhealthy food and in the rise of
childhood obesity. Studies of food marketing to children
conducted by such august bodies as the World Health
Organization, the Kaiser Family Foundation, the British Food
Commission, and the Institute of Medicine all point to a link
between child-targeted marketing and childhood obesity. While
food marketers tend to minimize or deny the connection between
children’s food choices and advertising, this stance is
puzzling. Either advertising works or it doesn’t. If it works,
then the marketing targeted to children will lead to a rise in
consumption of the products being advertised to them. If it
doesn’t work, then why are companies spending billions of
dollars annually to target children?
Any legitimate conversation about marketing—including one about
self-regulation—must include the point of view that government
regulation, not self-regulation, is the best way to minimize the
negative effect that advertising and marketing have on the
health and well-being of children.
Read the complete text of
CCFC's comments.
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