Is Count Chocula About to Get Defanged?

With children's waistlines rising faster than oil prices, the United States government released new guidelines for how the food industry should market its products to children. The government wants companies to promote healthier alternatives and refrain from marketing sugary cereals and fast food to children. The guidelines, which are voluntary, were immediately decried by the food industry as “overly restrictive,” by Dan Jaffe, executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers. “There's clearly a demand hidden behind the velvet glove of the voluntary language,” Jaffe said to the New York Times. The proposed voluntary principles are designed to encourage stronger and more meaningful self-regulation by the food industry and to support parents' efforts to get their kids to eat healthier foods. While the goals they set for food marketers are ambitious and would take time to put into place, the public health stakes could not be higher. One in three children is overweight or obese, and the rates are even higher among some racial and ethnic groups. “Children are strongly influenced by the foods they see advertised on television and elsewhere. Creating a food marketing environment that supports, rather than undermines, the efforts of parents to encourage healthy eating among children will have a significant impact on reducing the nation's childhood obesity epidemic,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “These new Principles will help food and beverage companies use their creativity and resources to strengthen parents' efforts to encourage their children to make healthy choices.” The working group proposal sets out two basic nutrition principles for foods marketed to children. Advertising and marketing should encourage children to choose foods that make meaningful contributions to a healthful diet from food groups including vegetables, fruit, whole grains, fat-free or low-fat milk products, fish, extra lean meat and poultry, eggs, nuts or seeds, and beans. In addition, the saturated fat, trans fat, added sugars, and sodium in foods marketed to children should be limited to minimize the negative impact on children's health and weight. The working group proposes that industry strive to market foods by the year 2016 that meet the proposed nutritional principles and marketing criteria. For sodium, the proposal includes interim targets for 2016 and final targets for 2021. One serving of General Mills' Count Chocula GIS contains 160 mg of salt and 12 g of sugar. By comparison, a bowl of oatmeal has no sodium and only 1 g of sugar but, unfortunately, no flashy chocolate vampire to entice children.