Tag: children
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Rudd Center Study Targets Food and Beverage Ads on Children’s Websites
Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity has published a paper criticizing the use of food and beverage advertising on websites directed at children. A.E. Ustjanauskas, et al., “Food and beverage advertising on children’s web sites,” Pediatric Obesity, July 2013. Using data provided by comScore, researchers evaluated a total of 3.4 billion food…
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Advertising Standards Board Upholds Children’s Marketing Complaint Against Cereal Maker
The Obesity Policy Coalition (OPC) recently announced that the Australian Advertising Standards Board (ASB) has upheld its complaint alleging that a TV commercial for Kellogg Co.’s Coco Pops® cereal violated the Responsible Children’s Marketing Initiative (RCMI). According to ASB’s case report, the advertisement under review featured a bowl of Coco Pops® playing “Marco Polo” in…
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USDA Establishes Stringent New Rules for Food and Beverages Sold in Schools
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has issued an interim final rule amending the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program regulations “to establish nutrition standards for all foods sold in schools, other than food sold under the lunch and breakfast programs.” Acting under Section 208 of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010,…
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GAO Report Criticizes USDA School Lunch Standards
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently issued a report criticizing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for its “limited” response to school districts that had trouble implementing the new school lunch nutrition standards for the 2012-2013 school year. According to GAO, which gathered feedback from eight districts, schools reported that restrictions on the amount…
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BPA Allegedly Linked to Obesity in Adolescents
A recent study has allegedly linked higher urinary bisphenol A (BPA) levels to a greater risk of obesity in adolescent girls, raising questions about whether BPA “could be a potential new environmental obesogen.” De-Kun Li, et al., “Urine Bisphenol-A Level in Relation to Obesity and Overweight in School-Age Children,” PLoS One, June 2012. Researchers with…
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Nickelodeon Responds to Request to Curb Food Marketing to Children
Nickelodeon and its parent company Viacom have purportedly declined to change their advertising policies after four senators penned a June 10, 2013, letter asking the network to further limit the food and beverage commercials shown during children’s TV programming. “As an entertainment company, Nickelodeon’s primary mission is to make the highest quality entertainment content in…
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AMA Votes to Define Obesity as Disease, Ban Energy Drink Marketing to Children and End SNAP Eligibility for Sugar-Sweetened Beverages
The American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates has formally adopted three new resolutions at its 2013 Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, that aim to define obesity as a disease, prohibit the marketing of energy drinks to adolescents younger than age 18, and end the eligibility of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance…
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WHO Report Champions Stricter Regulations for Food Marketing to Children
The World Health Organization (WHO) has published a new report, “Marketing of foods high in fat, salt and sugar to children,” that calls the marketing of “unhealthy” foods to children “disastrously effective,” alleging the food industry is driving rising obesity rates in children by using “cheap new marketing channels, such as social media and smart…