Child obesity is a big and growing problem that's gaining increasing government attention. Unfortunately, the feds are poised to adopt ill-conceived regulations that won't help but might make the problem worse. Get ready for severe new guidelines on food advertising to children.
This article originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal
Child obesity is a big and growing problem that's gaining increasing government attention. Unfortunately, the feds are poised to adopt ill-conceived regulations that won't help but might make the problem worse. Get ready for severe new guidelines on food advertising to children.
Last year, an interagency government task force proposed new "voluntary" guidelines on food marketing aimed at kids under 17 that defines prohibited foods so broadly that it would curtail advertising not only of Froot Loops and soda but also of Cheerios and yogurt. The task force acknowledges that "a large percentage of food products currently in the marketplace"—88 of the 100 most-advertised foods and drinks, according to the Association of National Advertisers—"would not meet the [guidelines]." Those guidelines are currently at the White House, where the administration faces heavy pressure from do-gooder types and the public-health lobby to approve them.
Restricting food advertising is a flawed approach to childhood obesity. The underlying causes of weight gain in children are the same as in their parents—eating too much and exercising too little. And academic research confirms what we sense from personal experience: Kids eat what their parents eat. If you sit down at the dinner table with a two-liter bottle of Coke, Jimmy won't ask for milk instead.
Official data from the Center for Disease Control's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey show that children's weight gains in recent decades mirror their parents' growing waistlines. The problem is exacerbated when both parents work, leaving less time for home cooking, shopping for fresh fruits and vegetables, and playing ball with the kids—but more money for eating out and ordering in (which tends to mean larger and more calorie-dense meals).
Still, isn't food advertising at least partly to blame? The evidence for this is lacking.
According to a 2007 study by the Federal Trade Commission, the exposure of youth to food advertising on television actually declined between 1977 and 2004, even as the rate of youth obesity soared. A 2004 report in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine noted that countries and regions that have banned food advertising on children's television—such as Sweden and Quebec—have childhood obesity rates no different from anywhere else.
To be sure, the time American children spend away from watching the ads on SpongeBob SquarePants or Dora the Explorer isn't always spent outside playing soccer and hopscotch. Instead, it's commonly spent on sedentary activities such as videogames and computers. And that is indeed part of the problem. But limitations on advertising won't make them any thinner.
Such limitations would carry real costs. According to an industry-sponsored study by IHS Consulting, compliance with the guidelines would cost food producers $152 billion in sales and 378,000 jobs in the banned products over four years. Some of these losses may be made up by shifting to other products in the long run, but in the short run the effects will be substantial.
It's also important to realize that while advertisements for new products can increase market demand—alerting consumers to an entirely new category of products—brand advertising primarily reallocates existing market share: The primary effect of Coke advertising is to steal customers from Pepsi, not to expand overall soft-drink consumption. Brand advertising can make brand loyalty stronger and lead to higher product prices. Restricting advertising, therefore, could actually backfire if companies compete for market share by reducing prices on junk foods enjoyed by kids, instead of by spending money on advertising.
Then there's the First Amendment problem, which the task force hopes to get around by styling its guidelines as "voluntary." But Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, has hinted that if the food industry doesn't adopt the guidelines he will seek congressional action. First Amendment expert Martin Redish of Northwestern University notes that this makes compliance with the guidelines about as "voluntary" as your boss's suggestion that you purchase his daughter's Girl Scout cookies.
Winning the war on children's obesity is going to be a long, difficult battle. Attacking advertising isn't going to help.