It's been only a few days since you and more than 20,000 other concerned people began writing to 17 big-name food and beverage companies, urging them to adopt the federal government's proposed voluntary principles for marketing to kids.
Already, you’ve gotten the attention of an industry leader.
General Mills, which has the most child-targeted cereal ads and produces six of the 10 brands with the worst overall nutrition and marketing impact, has been emailing people who have asked the company to stop marketing unhealthy foods to kids. We’re glad General Mills is taking us seriously, but we didn’t get the response we want. Tom Forsythe, General Mills’ vice president of Corporate Communications, wrote in a lengthy email that the company remains opposed to the voluntary guidelines proposed by the Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children.
Forsythe lists a number of reasons for General Mills’ opposition in his email. We decided to respond to Forsythe, paragraph by paragraph. Our response is copied below.
If you haven’t already, please tell General Mills and 16 other companies to step up to the plate and abide by the government’s proposed principles for marketing to kids.
Will you ask your friends to raise their voices for our kids too?
Ask your Twitter followers to help spread the word
Tell your Facebook friends to take action
Thank you for your email regarding the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI), and for your positive comments about our products.
Your email also encourages support for the very different approach suggested by the Interagency Working Group (IWG). Please allow me to respond, as we do have serious concerns with the IWG proposal.
Our most advertised product is cereal – and we stand behind it. Cereal is one of the healthiest breakfast choices you can make. Ready-to-eat cereal has fewer calories than almost any other common breakfast option. Cereal eaters also consume less fat, less cholesterol and more fiber than non-cereal eaters.
[PreventObesity.net] Some cereals are indeed nutritious, including many made by CFBAI companies. But most cereals General Mills and other companies market to kids are not. They are extremely high in sugar and sodium. Consumer Reports found that a donut has the same amount of sugar as many of the top cereals marketed to children.
Please remember that we aren’t opposing all cereals! We just want the cereals marketed to kids to meet the guidelines set forth by the IWG. In 2008, cereal companies—with General Mills leading the way—spent $156 million marketing to children. And companies are intentionally marketing their least healthy cereals to kids; the healthier ones are marketed only to adults.
[Forsythe] Childhood obesity is a serious issue – and General Mills wants to be part of the solution. But if the issue is obesity, cereal should perhaps be advertised more, not less. Because frequent cereal eaters tend to have healthier body weights – including people who choose sweetened cereals. It’s true of men. It’s true of women. It’s true of kids.
[PreventObesity.net] Does General Mills want to be part of the solution? The Rudd Center’s Cereal FACTS report found that SIX of the 10 cereals with the worst overall impact (nutrition and marketing scores combined) are products from General Mills. That report, which analyzed 47 varieties of children’s brands, also found that—overall—cereals marketed to children have 85 percent more sugar, 65 percent less fiber, and 60 percent more sodium than those marketed to adults.
We do believe that, if companies were to apply their marketing muscle to making truly healthy products more fun and appealing for kids, that could be part of the solution to the obesity epidemic. But deceptive ads about nutritionally poor products are not.
A new study about misleading nutrition claims on children’s cereals singled out General Mills for its “whole grain guaranteed” claim and other messages about how its cereals help children “grow up strong.” The study concludes: “When these claims are used to promote products that also contain high levels of sugar and/or sodium, they incorrectly imply that the products are nutritious overall.” It also notes “the common use of nutrition-related claims on otherwise nutritionally poor products…affirm[s] the need for increased regulation…to protect consumers.”
We know you make healthier products, so why are you spending millions to mislead parents and encourage children to eat the most unhealthy cereals you make?
[Forsythe] Data published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, based on the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services’ National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), found that frequent cereal eaters tend to have healthier body weights overall, and that includes kids who eat sweetened cereals. To be precise, kids who eat four to seven servings of cereal over a 14-day period are less likely to be overweight than kids who eat fewer than four servings of cereal. Kids who eat cereal more frequently, or more than seven times in 14 days, are even less likely to be overweight.
A separate study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association followed 2,000 American girls over a 10-year period. It also found that girls who demonstrated a consistent cereal-eating pattern had healthier body weights and lower body mass index (BMI) than those who did not.
[PreventObesity.net] There are plenty of studies about the importance of eating breakfast. We know that kids who eat any breakfast at all are less likely to be overweight compared with kids who skip the meal. But this isn’t an excuse for General Mills or others to intentionally market their least healthy cereals to kids.
General Mills has by far the most child-targeted cereal advertising—it’s responsible for almost 60 percent of all cereal ads seen by kids. The products General Mills advertises most extensively to kids (Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Honey Nut Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs and Trix) are all significantly less nutritious than other cereals in its portfolio. And General Mills isn’t alone. A study published this summer found that 88 percent of all TV ads by CFBAI companies were for unhealthy products in 2009.
[Forsythe] General Mills’ ready-to-eat cereals are America’s number one source of whole grain at breakfast, and fortified cereals provide more iron, folic acid, zinc, B vitamins and fiber than any other conventional breakfast choice.
[PreventObesity.net] Adding these nutrients doesn’t disguise the fact that you’re loading the cereal with sugar. Research not only debunks many of the nutrition-related claims on children’s cereals, it also shows that kids will eat healthy cereals.
[Forsythe] Eating cereal also has the added benefit of promoting milk consumption. Forty-one percent of the milk children consume is with cereal – and the figure is even higher for African American and Hispanic children.
[PreventObesity.net] African-American and Latino children have disproportionately high rates of obesity. We know that the food and beverage industries target these children more aggressively and do so across multiple media. The IWG’s proposed guidelines are especially critical for ensuring that cereal companies and others in the industry are not bombarding these children with ads for unhealthy products (like sugary cereals). It’s important to remember that kids will still consume milk when it’s poured over a healthy cereal!
[Forsythe] Many things have been written about the IWG proposal in the media, but you can be assured that food and beverage companies have studied every letter, comma and period in the proposal. We know what it would and would not allow. For example, under the IWG guidelines, 88 of the 100 most commonly consumed foods and beverages could not be advertised or marketed. The list of “banned” items under the guidelines would include essentially all cereals, salads, whole wheat bread, yogurt, canned vegetables, and a host of other items universally recognized as healthy.
[PreventObesity.net] It’s true—companies that agree to the proposed voluntary guidelines couldn’t market to kids many of the most commonly consumed foods. But the list includes many products that aren’t even marketed to kids, like bacon, beer and coffee.
The IWG’s proposed guidelines emphasize foods that make a meaningful contribution to a healthy diet, and according to a recent analysis, they do allow a number of cereals made by CFBAI companies, like Frosted Mini-Wheats, Life, Honey Bunches of Oats, Gluten Free Rice Krispies, Kashi Honey Puffs, Honey Sunshine, and Oatmeal Squares. Other “kid-friendly” foods, including Yoplait Go-Gurt and Trix yogurt, McDonald’s and Burger King chicken tenders kids’ meals, Skippy peanut butters, and Nestle Juicy Juice, also meet the IWG nutrition principles.
What they don’t allow are cereals that are extremely high in sugar and sodium. Clearly, not all cereals are “universally recognized as healthy.” (If you don’t believe us, just read the donut study we mentioned above.)
[Forsythe] The IWG guidelines actually conflict with most existing government programs and definitions relative to food. Many products that meet the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s current definition of “healthy,” for example, could not be advertised under IWG. Many products included in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program fail the IWG standards, as do most products encouraged and subsidized under the USDA’s Women, Infants and Children Feeding Program (WIC). Even low-calorie, nutrient dense foods of the type specifically encouraged by the U.S. Dietary Guidelines broadly fail to meet the uniquely strident restrictions of the IWG. In fact, the IWG guidelines have no parallel – from a science or nutrition standpoint – with any other U.S. government food or nutrition program.
[PreventObesity.net] The IWG’s proposed guidelines are grounded in the best science and represent the combined nutrition, health and marketing expertise of the Federal Trade Commission, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They translate the Dietary Guidelines for Americans to individual products and emphasize nutrient-dense foods that make a meaningful contribution to a healthy diet.
[Forsythe] For guidelines developed to address obesity, the IWG guidelines also curiously fail to include any reference to calories. The omission of a measure as important as calories also disadvantages cereals, which are inherently low-calorie, nutrient-dense foods. Because sweetened and unsweetened cereals tend to be roughly equal in calories per serving – most at about 120 calories per serving – whether sweetened or not.
[PreventObesity.net] The IWG focuses on sugar, which has a lot to do with calories, actually. Added sugars provide excess calories and dilute the nutrient density of the total diet, both of which can contribute to weight gain. The IWG’s proposed limit for added sugars is no more than 13 grams of added sugars for a typical portion. This is based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and is very reasonable. In fact, it’s considerably more generous than the sugar criteria for the WIC food packages, which is 6 grams of total sugars per ounce of dry cereal.
[Forsythe] Your email also suggests companies could and should simply reformulate products to meet the IWG guidelines. As you kindly note, General Mills has been leading the way on improving the health and nutrition profile of products. We have led the way on sugar reduction in cereals, and on reducing sodium across our portfolio. But we are concerned that it may not be possible to reformulate to meet the IWG in many cases – resulting in an effective ban on the marketing of healthy products, including cereals.
[PreventObesity.net] According to the Rudd report, General Mills is actually “leading the way” as the worst offender. The study found that an astounding SIX of the top 10 cereals with the worst overall impact (nutrition and marketing scores combined) are products from General Mills. Three are from Kellogg, and one is from Post.
General Mills also was singled out by a study published this summer in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine—because in 2009, 97 percent of the products it advertised to young kids on TV were high in sugar, sodium or saturated fat.
We remain hopeful about claims made by larger cereal companies to improve the nutritional quality of their children’s cereals, but so far the efforts have been inadequate. The Rudd report notes that cereal companies have made only slight progress in reformulating their products—the average sugar content of cereals marketed to children dropped from 14 grams to 12 grams per serving. This decrease is equivalent to one-half of a teaspoon.
In 2009, and again in 2010, General Mills pledged to reduce sugar in its cereals to single-digit grams per serving, but we have yet to see any evidence that you've done so, or even a time frame for when you might do this. We'd love to get an update on this effort, and applaud any action you take to make your products healthier, especially those that align with the IWG’s proposed guidelines.
[Forsythe] Thank you again for sharing your views, and for your kind words. But after reviewing the IWG proposal in careful detail – we remain opposed.
[PreventObesity.net] The IWG received 29,000 comments on its proposed guidelines, and 28,000 of them supported these reasonable, scientifically based recommendations that would protect kids.
Companies that don't like the voluntary guidelines are free to ignore them. But parents need them, and our children's health depends on them. I'm planning to reward those companies that take children's health and our nation's future seriously by buying their products for my family.
Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to respond.
Sincerely,
Tom Forsythe
Vice President, Corporate Communications
General Mills