New Review of Junk Food Ads Targeting Kids Will Likely End in Nothing Being Done

(MoneyWatch)  President Obama's omnibus appropriations bill calls for the FTC, FDA, Agriculture and the CDC to come up with new standards for advertising food -- particularly junk food -- to kids. The headline used by Ad Age, "FTC Could Set Standards for Food Marketing Aimed at Teens," sounds alarming, but advertisers in the food business will roll over and go back to sleep when they see the fine print:

... the bill signed by President Barack Obama today calls for several government studies, including one examining whether the government should set standards for determining which foods are healthy and appropriate to market to youths as old as 17.

...The bill calls for the Federal Trade Commission, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Secretary of Agriculture to establish an "Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children," according to a report attached to the legislation.

Food companies and their agencies will be quietly chuckling in their cubicles, because we've been down this road several times before. For all the calls to end the advertising of fattening foods to kids, almost all have started with "studies" and almost none have resulted in regulation:

• 2008: The FTC produced a report on junk food advertising to kids. No new rules were enacted.
• 2006: The Children's Advertising Review Unit corralled food companies into a voluntary effort to restrain their marketing to kids -- but there were no new laws enacted.
• 2006: There was another FTC report, which also staved off regulation by encouraging voluntary acts by advertisers.
• 2005: The Institute of Medicine came as close as anyone to tying TV advertising to the obesity epidemic, but no laws were changed.

With the economy and healthcare top of Obama's agenda for the next two years, don't be surprised if you see no changes whatsoever coming from the FTC in the area of food advertising to children.

• See BNET's previous coverage of this issue:
• What's Inside That FTC Report on Junk Food Marketing?