Tag: junk food
-
Study Questions Alleged Link Between Junk Food in Schools and Childhood Obesity
A recent study attempting “to isolate the causal effect of junk food availability on children’s food consumption and body mass index (BMI)” has concluded that access to competitive foods in schools “does not significantly increase BMI or obesity among this fifth-grade cohort despite the increased likelihood of in-school junk food purchases.” Ashlesha Datar and Nancy…
-
Food Advertising to Kids Deemed “Inherently Misleading”
In an article titled “Government Can Regulate Food Advertising to Children Because Cognitive Research Shows That It Is Inherently Misleading,” two attorneys and a communications professor assert that the First Amendment is no bar to the regulation of “junk food” ads targeting children younger than 12 because they lack the ability to understand the advertisers’…
-
Article Explores Intersection of Junk Food Ads Targeting Children and First Amendment
In an article supported, in part, by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, authors Jennifer Harris and Samantha Graff suggest that the findings of psychological research about the subliminal effects of food advertising on young people should be considered when advertisers defend their practices by invoking the First Amendment’s commercial speech doctrine. Harris, who is affiliated…
-
Rudd Center Report Claims “Advergames” Promote Unhealthy Food to Kids
Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity recently published a study claiming that “children are disproportionately targeted by food company Websites using branded computer games, known as advergames,” which allegedly promote “calorie-dense nutrient-poor foods.” Jennifer Harris, et al., “US Food Company Branded Advergames on the Internet: Children’s exposure and effects on snack consumption,”…
-
AP Highlights Legislator Resistance to Food Ad Limits
“House Republicans are siding with food companies resisting the Obama administration’s efforts to pressure them to stop advertising junk food for children,” writes Associated Press reporter Mary Clare Jalonick in a July 6, 2011, article examining the efforts of individual legislators to stymie proposed Federal Trade Commission (FTC) food marketing guidelines. According to Jalonick, while food companies…
-
Food Nutrition Labeling and Youth Marketing Continue to Generate Comment
Calling for the food industry to put voluntary nutrition labeling initiatives on hold, Kelly Brownell, director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Childhood Obesity, has co-authored an opinion piece about front-of-package nutrition labeling in The New England Journal of Medicine. Among other matters, the article recommends that industry leaders await an Institute…
-
Focus on Obesity
The parties to obesity-related litigation, brought on behalf of several teenagers against fast-food giant McDonald’s Corp. in 2002, have filed a stipulation of voluntary dismissal with prejudice. Pelman v. McDonald’s Corp., No. 02-7821 (S.D.N.Y., stipulation filed February 25, 2011). The action followed entry of an order in December 2010 scheduling pretrial discovery and motions filing…
-
Mark Bittman, “Is ‘Eat Real Food’ Unthinkable?,” The New York Times, February 8, 2011
New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman tackles the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) latest dietary guidelines in this opinion piece claiming that “the agency’s nutrition experts are at odds with its other mission: to promote our bounty in whatever form its processors make it.” According to Bittman, the guidelines are clearest when promoting “good”…