Guidance Documents: Food Marketing to Children and Adolescents

Since 1980, childhood obesity rates have tripled among adolescents and doubled among younger children. While many factors contribute to childhood obesity, regardless of the causes, responsible marketing can play a positive role in improving children’s diets and physical activity level. The FTC has been actively working with government agencies, consumer advocates, academics, and industry to foster creative and effective self-regulatory initiatives to help combat childhood obesity. Among other things, the agency has conducted workshops, issued a report on marketing, self-regulation and childhood obesity, and published a study on television food advertising. Most recently, the FTC started an in-depth survey of food industry marketing expenditures and activities directed toward children and adolescents. The agency has ordered forty-four companies to submit special reports with the relevant information necessary for staff to complete the survey.
Use this site to learn about the FTC’s efforts to address marketing issues and childhood obesity. You can find information about past workshops, monitoring and research, and speeches, statements, and articles.

Workshops

July 2007
A forum, “Weighing In: A Check-Up on Marketing, Self-Regulation, and Childhood Obesity,” offered members of the food and media industries and self-regulatory groups an opportunity to report on their progress implementing initiatives in response to those recommendations, and for other stakeholders to comment on that progress. Learn more.

May 2006
The FTC and the Department of Health and Human Services issued a joint report on the May 2005 workshop,“Perspectives on Marketing, Self-Regulation, and Childhood Obesity,” that recommended concrete steps for changing marketing and other practices to make progress against childhood obesity.

May 2005
The FTC and the Department of Health and Human Services sponsored a workshop on marketing, self-regulation, and childhood obesity that brought together representatives from food and beverage companies, medical and nutrition experts, representatives from media and entertainment companies, consumer groups, advertising specialists, and other key experts for an open discussion on industry self-regulation concerning the marketing of food and beverages to children, as well as initiatives to educate children and parents about nutrition.

See more details, including the agenda, remarks, PowerPoint presentations, transcripts, and video archives of the event are available here.

Monitoring & Research

Current
The FTC is currently preparing a study on food marketing to children and adolescents, including television, other traditional media, and “new media,” such as Internet advertising, product placements, character licensing and cross-promotions, and word-of-mouth marketing. The study will include information on the types of food marketed; the types of marketing techniques used; the amount spent on marketing; the nature of marketing activities; and any marketing policies, initiatives, or research in effect or undertaken by food and beverage companies.

Specifically, the FTC is researching television advertising, radio advertising, print advertising, movie theater/video/video game advertising, company-sponsored Internet sites, other Internet advertising, other digital advertising, in-store advertising and promotions, specialty item or premium distribution, public entertainment events, product placements, character licensing and cross-promotions, sponsorship of sports teams or individual athletes, packaging and labeling, word-of-mouth marketing, viral marketing, celebrity endorsements, in-school marketing, advertising in conjunction with philanthropic endeavors, and other marketing expenditures.

The FTC sent compulsory process orders to 44 food and beverage manufacturers, distributors, and marketers and quick service restaurant companies in the United States. The orders were issued pursuant to Section 6(b) of the Federal Trade Commission Act, as amended, 15 U.S.C. § 46(b).

The report was requested by Congress as part of the bill appropriating funds for the FTC in fiscal year 2006. The Commission first requested relevant information for the study, including empirical data, in a Federal Register Notice on February 24, 2006. The public comments that the Commission received in response did not include enough data for the requested study. After analyzing the responses, the FTC published another Federal Register Notice on October 18, 2006, proposing information requests that would be sent to companies to collect information for the study. It noted that the public comments would be considered before the FTC submitted its request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Under the Paperwork Reduction Act, if the agency is requesting identical sets of information from more than nine companies, then the agency must receive OMB approval first. After analyzing the comments sent by interested parties the FTC published a Federal Register Notice on April 18, 2007, asking for comments on the proposed compulsory process orders that would be sent to companies. Staff reviewed the public comments and sent the requests to OMB for approval. Companies have until November 1, 2007 to respond to the FTC. The FTC will then review the data and compile a report on the current status of food marketing to children and adolescents.

The FTC published a federal register notice describing the proposed study.

June 2007
The FTC’s Bureau of Economics released research on children’s exposure to television advertising. The research found that today’s children see more promotional ads for other programming, but fewer paid ads and fewer minutes of advertising on television. The research looked at television ad exposure for children in the year 2004 and compared it to similar research from 1977. The report also found that children are not exposed to more food ads on television than they were in the past, although their ad exposure is more concentrated on children’s programming.

Speeches, Statements, and Articles

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003


Last Modified: Friday, 18-Apr-2008 16:59:00 EDT