Category: Other Developments
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Food and Beverage Marketing Aimed at Young Children Focus of New Report
California-based law and policy advocacy organization ChangeLab Solutions has issued a voluminous white paper reviewing legal issues surrounding potential strategies to address the marketing of “unhealthy” foods and beverages purportedly directed to children younger than age 5. The report details various policy considerations with respect to outdoor advertising, broadcast media, digital and print media, childcare…
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JHSPH Report Evaluates Tactics Used to Implement SSB Taxation in Mexico
A Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH) report on Mexico’s sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) tax has concluded that “strong advocacy work, scientific evidence, and knowledge of the political context can be important facilitators to policy change that promotes obesity prevention and control.” The case study highlights the strategies used by civil society organizations, public…
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FOE Report Claims Food Industry Covertly Manipulates Public Discourse
Friends of the Earth (FOE) has released a report claiming that so-called food and agriculture industry front groups use covert tactics to influence the public discourse around agriculture, organic production and sustainability, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Titled Spinning Food: How Food Industry Front Groups and Covert Communications Are Shaping the Story of Food, the…
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TV Documentary Alleges Some French Cheeses Produced Without Fresh Milk
French restaurateurs and food critics are calling for new food-labeling rules after a documentary airing on France 2 reported that some of the country’s food manufacturers have been using vegetable fat-based substitutes for fresh milk when producing cheese products. In “Artificial Cheese on Your Plate” (“Du Faux Fromage Dans Votre Assiette”), cheese producers are reportedly…
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Public Health Attorney Publishes Report Condemning ASN’s Ties with Industry
“In order to bolster its credibility, reflect objective science that has the public’s best interest in mind, and hold the food industry more accountable, it is paramount that ASN reconsider its financial ties to the junk food industry,” concludes public health lawyer and activist Michele Simon in an investigation that purports to expose conflicts of…
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SSB Taxes and Food Marketing Among Topics at Upcoming Childhood Obesity Conference
Public health advocates from around the United States will convene in San Diego, California, on June 29-July 2, 2015, for the 8th Biennial Childhood Obesity Conference. The “Marketing to Kids” track of the two-day event will include a mini-plenary session titled “Taxing Sugar-Sweetened Beverages for Public Health: What Have We Learned from the Mexico, Berkeley and…
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BMA Scotland Supports Measure to Ban Alcohol Ads at Sporting Events
The British Medical Association in Scotland (BMA Scotland) has reportedly backed legislation under consideration by the Scottish Parliament’s Health and Sport Committee that seeks to ban alcohol advertising at all events geared toward children younger than age 18. According to media reports, the proposed measure would also prohibit the marketing of alcoholic beverages near schools…
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EWG Launches New Assault Against BPA in Cans
The Environmental Working Group (EWG), a “non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to protecting human health and the environment,” has issued an analysis of more than 250 foods that identifies which of the products’ cans are lined with bisphenol A (BPA) as well as an online petition imploring consumers to encourage companies to stop using BPA-based epoxy…