WASHINGTON — Food manufacturers should voluntarily restrict the way they market foods to children, but the government will not seek formal regulations in this area, several speakers said at a meeting on obesity sponsored by Business Access.
“Effective industry self-regulation can play an important role in protecting consumers,” said Lydia Parnes, director of the bureau of consumer protection at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). “Often, self-regulation can address issues more effectively than government can.”
Michael Lyon, M.D., medical director of the Canadian Center for Functional Medicine, asked why the commission was not planning to take any action on the McDonald's Corporation's recent announcement that the fast-food chain would sponsor a physical education program in elementary schools.
“Does that mean if a tobacco company or a beer company did it, it would be okay with the FTC?” he said. “There's nothing on the McDonald's menu that a child will eat that's healthy and will not promote obesity…. How can the FTC turn a blind eye to that? Is that just because McDonald's is so powerful and loaded with money?”
“Absolutely not,” Ms. Parnes replied. “But you need to focus on what government can do about this in a prohibitory way. Our mandate is to act against deceptive advertising and marketing. Can the government stop McDonald's from sponsoring physical education? There are pretty serious Constitutional problems with that.”
In a separate session, Thomas B. Pahl, assistant director for advertising practices at the FTC, discussed a workshop on childhood obesity that the agency had held earlier in the year.
Mr. Pahl, who said he was speaking only for himself, noted that contrary to critics' claims, researchers for the agency's bureau of economics found that children aged 2–11 were exposed to 34% fewer food advertisements on children's television shows and 50% fewer ads on family shows in 2004 than in 1977.
“Those results are more consistent with what we've heard from the food industry that there hasn't been a great increase in food advertising to children; if anything, it has decreased over the past couple of decades at the same time childhood obesity has been increasing,” he said.
Mr. Pahl said that food manufacturers are trying to offer more healthy choices to children—for example, McDonald's is offering apple slices in its Happy Meals—and are trying to package healthy foods to make them more appealing to children.
Mr. Pahl said that legislating or regulating food marketing practices would be difficult and inefficient.
“The FTC does not believe, based on its past experience, that [regulation] is something practical that could be applied,” he said. “It's difficult sometimes to impose restrictions on food advertising to children, because it tends to raise issues like what's good food, what's bad food, what time of day, and how can you target it.”
As a practical matter, he continued, “even if regulation or legislation were to be imposed, you're talking years and years before any kind of solution like that could be in place. What's more helpful now, given how quickly childhood obesity is increasing and how serious a problem it is, is to see what we can do now. And what we can do now is work with industry and consumer groups to see if we can decrease [inappropriate advertising] without legislative and regulatory alternatives. It would be faster, and may make those alternatives unnecessary.”