Resources
GLOBAL RESOURCES
New Resources on Global Trade and Public Health
At the November 2007 meeting of the American Public Health Association in Washington, D.C., several sessions addressed the issue of trade and health. Many of these sessions were sponsored by the new Trade and Health Forum and address global economic policies that generate health disparities.
Presentations on global trade and public health are now posted on the CPATH website.
Presenters will appreciate your comments, and notice if you use these materials.
FOOD RESOURCES
In the last year or two, public health authorities, consumer advocates, the media and policy makers have focused new attention on the role of the food industry in contributing to childhood obesity. Almost every week, some new study is released. Below we highlight several recent reports from both the food industry and its critics that caught our attention. In future postings, Corporations and Health Watch will present similar updates for the other industries we cover. Please send us news of reports you think our readers will find relevant.
Food and Advertising Industries Revise Voluntary Guidelines on Advertising to Children
In November, 2006, the Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU), an organization created by advertising industry trade groups, issued revised guidelines for advertising to children.
The new guidelines were issued in part in response to critics who charged the existing rules, developed 32 year earlier, were too narrow and lacked enforcement mechanisms.
In addition, 10 companies promised CARU that they would spend at least half their advertising budgets aimed at children under the age of 12 on promoting products defined as healthy by the government and that they would not advertise in elementary schools.
The 10 companies, which account for two-thirds of the television food and drink advertising directed at children, are: Cadbury Schweppes USA, Campbell Soup Company, Kraft Foods, Unilever, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Hershey, General Mills and Kellogg.
According to an article in the Washington Post, Dr. J. Michael McGinnis, who served as Chair of the Institute of Medicine panel that wrote a recent report on food marketing to children, the proposed changes in marketing practices were, “a move in the right direction…. It would be a pretty substantial change.”
Critics, on the other hand, were not satisfied. In a recent statement Center for Science in the Public Interest director Michael F. Jacobson argued: “A serious approach to childhood obesity would not allow corporations to appeal directly to children and convince them to eat foods that harm their health — period. The voluntary measures announced recently in the U.S. are promulgated by advertising- and food-industry groups whose main goals are to forestall serious government action and to generally make life easier for advertisers. Unfortunately the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission are also more oriented to protecting business than helping parents and protecting children.”
And Susan Linn, a Harvard psychologist and author of Consuming Kids told the Washington Post that these companies “will continue to be able to market junk food to children — and their marketing is going to be even more confusing for children because it will be linked to “healthy lifestyle” messages. (See her full statement here.)
Assessment of Food Industry Promises to Address Childhood Obesity
In 2005, the World Health organization asked Alexandra Lewin, Lauren Lindstrom and Marion Nestle at the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at New York University to develop case studies of the actual practices of two leading food companies, McDonald’s and Kraft Foods, in marketing foods to children. In their report, they concluded that “we see no way out of this dilemma [between the need to change children’s diets and the food companies need to make profits] except through regulatory intervention.”
New Report Assesses Online Food Marketing to Children
Earlier in 2006, the Kaiser Family Foundation released a report authored by Elizabeth Moore at the University of Notre Dame titled: It’s Child’s Play: Advergaming and the Online Marketing of Food to Children. The study found that 85% of 96 food brands that heavily advertised to children also had a corporate or brand website and that these sites contained a variety of information and games directed at young children and designed to promote their products.
California’s Strategic Alliance Assesses Progress in creating environments that support good nutrition
The Strategic Alliance is a coalition of California organizations concerned about nutrition, physical activity and health. A year ago they participated in California’s Governor’s Action Summit on Health, Nutrition and Obesity. Among the Alliance’s action goals are eliminating the advertising of unhealthy foods and beverages to California’s youth and to institute healthy food and beverage standards for all food items in preschool, school and afterschool programs. Now, the Alliance has issued a first year review, assessing progress in meeting its goals. The report provides advocates and health professionals with a detailed description of an advocacy effort to change policies in order to promote health.
TEACHING RESOURCES
Find a graduate course syllabus for public health, health education or health policy programs on The Role of Corporations and Government in Health Promotion and Health Policy. The syllabus includes session topics, required and suggested readings, and course assignments. Individual sessions may be adaptable for other types of courses.
On March 8, 2007, the Corporations and Health Project held a symposium at the City University of New York Graduate Center on the topic of corporate practices and health. Dr. Nicholas Freudenberg, Dr. Sandro Galea's and Dr. Nancy Stoller's Power Point presentations from that event can be viewed here.
The health dimensions of corporate practices are also shown in a variety of feature and documentary films. Using these films in public health courses or as outside assignments can provoke useful discussions on corporations, health and government. Send us your favorite films on these topics so we can add to our list.
