By Tom Philpott on Fri. November 18, 2011 1:27 PM PDT
When we last checked in with him, Freakonomics blogger Steven Sexton was ludicrously blaming the "local food movement" for a listeria outbreak that sickened people over a swath of the nation stretching from New York to Alabama to Oregon.
Now Sexton is back with an even broader indictment of local food. This one starts off on shaky ground, and then plunges into an abyss of self-assured and deeply flawed analysis. Honestly, I would not spend time engaging with it if I didn't know that serious people, some of whom wield real political power, automatically regard the Freakonomics brand with credulity. So here goes.
Sexton opens by raising the specter of a vast political tide on the verge of imposing relocalization on the US food system. A "Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act" has been introduced in Congress, Sexton informs us, which would allot about $200 million to local farm programs. He acknowledges that that sum amounts to a "rounding error in the $3.7 trillion federal budget"—but that's not all! The local food lobby is formidible. Just look:
But the bill follows on a federal rule that gives preference to local farms in contract bidding for school lunches. It also builds on high-profile advocacy by Michelle Obama, who has become a leader of the food reform movement, joining the likes of Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and famed-chef Alice Waters.
All of this is nonsense. In terms of influencing public policy, the local-food movement is stuck in the mud. The Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act, paltry sum notwithstanding, has no chance of passing. Meanwhile, a few members of Congress are currently holed up writing a "secret farm bill" which, if it passes, would slash funds for local food projects and provide yet more billions of dollars of public support for the kind of large-scale agriculture Sexton loves.
As for schools giving preference to local farms, their tiny lunch budgets—less than a dollar of federal cash to spend per meal on ingredients—mean they're stuck buying the same old heat-and-serve dreck from the food industry. Meanwhile, Michelle Obama'a food advocacy has devolved into staging photo ops for Walmart. When Big Food lobbyists pushed Congress to gut new rules that would have improved school lunches, the First Lady uttered not a public peep.
So Sexton need not tremble at the thought of government power enforcing the dictates of the local food movement. The well-heeled agribusiness lobby has that arena pretty much sewn up. What he should worry about is the very institution the Freakonomics crew worships: the market. The number of US farmers markets quadrupled between 1994 and 2011, the USDA reports. In another recent study, the agency found that farmers selling into local markets grossed $4.8 billion in 2008, and that direct-to-consumers sales at places like farmers markets spiked 215 percent in real terms between 1992 and 2007.
This explosion in local-food sales took place with minuscule government support, in a period when billions of dollars of annual federal subsidies propped up industrial farming and antitrust regulators looked the other way while agribusiness firms consolidated into vast, market-dominating entities.
In other words, an increasing number of people want to support farmers in their own regions, and are bucking larger economic trends to do so. Are they misguided?
Yes, asserts Sexton: They are violating the doctrine of comparative advantage, and by doing so, they threaten the planet and the hungry. Again, the analysis doesn't hold up. Comparative advantage, an idea from the 19th century British economist David Ricardo, holds that each region should generate a surplus in stuff it can produce most cheaply, and trade those excess goods for the specialized products of other regions.
But in our present-day food system, an entire host of ecological and social calamities masquerade as prime examples of comparative advantage. Sexton, for example, cites the case of California and its massive vegetable production:
The case for specialization is perhaps nowhere stronger than in agriculture, where the costs of production depend on natural resource endowments, such as temperature, rainfall, and sunlight, as well as soil quality, pest infestations, and land costs. Different crops demand different conditions and vary in their resilience to shocks. So California, with mild winters, warm summers, and fertile soils produces all U.S.-grown almonds and 80 percent of U.S. strawberries and grapes.
And that's not all. According to California's ag department, the state produces 99 percent of the artichokes grown in the US, 44 percent of asparagus, a fifth of cabbage, two-thirds of carrots, half of bell peppers, 89 percent of cauliflower, 94 percent of broccoli, and 95 percent of celery, 90 percent of the leaf lettuce, 83 percent of Romaine lettuce, 83 percent of fresh spinach, 84 percent of peaches, and 97 percent of fresh plums.
Now here's a region making the most of its natural resource endowments! However, in much of California's most productive farm land, the apparent comparative advantage is like the sight of water in a sun-baked desert: a mirage.
In the the state's intensively farmed San Joaquin Valley, with its teeming fields of tomatoes, almonds, pistachios, lettuce, cantaloupes, grapes, and other crops, growers have long relied on federally subsidized water diverted from long distances to keep their crops irrigated. As this 2010 Environmental Working Group report shows, the soil in much of the valley is rich in selenium and other salts, which, when subjected to irrigation, concentrates in groundwater and makes it impossible for crops to grow. So that means expensive government-financed projects to divert fouled groundwater into waterways, which just pushes the ecological trouble downstream.
And as drought has further pinched the area's water supplies, water is getting more expensive—forcing farmers to make adjustments that only make things worse. The veteran reporter Matt Jenkins put it this way in a Grist article last year:
Farmers are shifting to higher dollar-value crops that will cover the water price hikes—but, paradoxically, are more sensitive to drought. They're pumping groundwater as an emergency supply of water—and burning through that safety net even as it saves them from the current dry spell. And some farmers here are beginning to think about an exit strategy from agriculture altogether.]
The US food system brims with such comparative-advantage mirages. Arizona's arid Yuma Valley provides a huge portion of the nation's winter vegetables, but to do so, it relies on the same source of water as California's Central Valley: the Colorado River. As in California, heavy irrigation leads to high salt levels in groundwater, which then flows into Mexico, causing cross-border tensions and forcing expensive action on the part of the US government. South-central Florida, source of 90 percent of US winter tomatoes, has also been hailed as a comparative-advantage paradise for its sunny weather. Yet as Barry Estabrook shows in his excellent book Tomatoland, tomatoes could never grow there without an an annual monsoon of pesticides and fungicides.. And the Midwest's former prairies produce mountains of corn; but in doing so they hemorrhage topsoil at alarming rates and send gushers of agrochemical down the Mississippi where they accumulate in the Gulf of Mexico, creating a huge annual dead zone.
A true application of comparative advantage—one that took ecological factors into account—would likely lead to changes in our food system that Sexton would deplore: a highly diversified, geographically dispersed ag landscape that takes advantage of ecological niches without driving them to ruin.
Brandishing his flawed comparative-advantage analysis, Sexton goes on to make a couple of fatuous claims. First this:
My conservative estimates are that under the pseudo-locavore system, corn acreage increases 27 percent or 22 million acres, and soybean acres increase 18 percent or 14 million acres. Fertilizer use would increase at least 35 percent for corn, and 54 percent for soybeans, while fuel use would climb 23 percent and 34 percent, for corn and soybeans, respectively. Chemical demand would grow 23 percent and 20 percent for the two crops, respectively.
What Sexton is doing here is assuming that a relocalized food system would seek to grow just as much corn and soy as the current one. That's just silly. The local food movement has been relentlessly critical of US ag's corn/soy fixation. Nobody's building out an alternative food system with the intent of reproducing the excesses of the current one.
Then we get this jawdropper:
And, as we try to tackle obesity, locavorism is likely to raise the cost of precisely the wrong foods. Grains can be grown cheaply across much of the country, but the costs of growing produce outside specific, limited regions increase quickly. Thus, nutrient-dense calories like fruits and vegetables become more expensive, while high fructose corn syrup becomes relatively cheaper.
Right; so we're going to relocalize the food system and make sure to keep growing the same amount of corn, which we're going to keep turning it into cheap high-fructose corn syrup. Huh? If Sexton took his nose out of USDA corn and soy data and took a look at what's happening on the ground across the country, he'd see that no one is looking to open a local corn syrup factory.
But Sexton isn't doing the serious work of thinking through what a re-localized food system would look like. We need much more of that—including critical perspectives. What he's doing instead is mounting an intellectually vapid defense of the current deeply flawed food system, swathed in the high-sounding tropes of classical economics.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Healthier School Lunches? No Thank You, Says Congress
By Meredith Melnick Wednesday, November 16, 2011
http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/16/healthier-school-lunches-no-thank-you-says-congress/
Is pizza with tomato sauce a vegetable? Apparently yes, according to Congress, which on Monday blocked legislation that would have made school lunches healthier.
In their final version of a spending bill that includes planning for the $11 billion National School Lunch Program, House and Senate committee members blocked or delayed major proposals from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that aimed to toughen nutritional standards for students' subsidized meals.
The USDA proposals — the first update to school-lunch nutritional guidelines in 15 years — suggested cutting back on salt; reducing starchy vegetables like potatoes, corn, lima beans and peas; and adding more fresh fruits and vegetables. The proposals also called for setting a maximum calorie allowance for meals (currently, there is only a calorie minimum) and installing more specific targets for dairy and whole grain content in school lunches. The USDA also proposed not counting tomato paste on pizza as a vegetable.
Given that a third of American children are overweight or obese, and that they get roughly 40% of their daily calories during school lunch, nutrition experts have long advocated for an overhaul of the federally subsidized meals dished out to 31 million students each year.
Not surprisingly, frozen pizza makers and potato growers pushed back on the USDA proposals. Schools also complained that the changes would have cost too much money, and some politicians and school administrators said the government shouldn't be in the business of telling school districts that they can't serve specific foods.
Citing financial concerns and a lack of data on the potential benefits of the USDA proposals, Congress blocked the following requirements:
The USDA's recommendations, originally announced in January, would have significantly revamped the standard school menu, as evidenced by a pair of before-and-after weekly menus [PDF] — one based on the current guidelines, and the other based on the proposed updates. "This is a huge step forward and USDA deserves lots of support for doing this," wrote Marion Nestle, a nutrition professor at New York University and the author of Food Politics, on her blog at the time. It's a shame the agency didn't get it.
Meredith Melnick is a reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @MeredithCM. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.
http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/16/healthier-school-lunches-no-thank-you-says-congress/
Is pizza with tomato sauce a vegetable? Apparently yes, according to Congress, which on Monday blocked legislation that would have made school lunches healthier.
In their final version of a spending bill that includes planning for the $11 billion National School Lunch Program, House and Senate committee members blocked or delayed major proposals from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that aimed to toughen nutritional standards for students' subsidized meals.
The USDA proposals — the first update to school-lunch nutritional guidelines in 15 years — suggested cutting back on salt; reducing starchy vegetables like potatoes, corn, lima beans and peas; and adding more fresh fruits and vegetables. The proposals also called for setting a maximum calorie allowance for meals (currently, there is only a calorie minimum) and installing more specific targets for dairy and whole grain content in school lunches. The USDA also proposed not counting tomato paste on pizza as a vegetable.
Given that a third of American children are overweight or obese, and that they get roughly 40% of their daily calories during school lunch, nutrition experts have long advocated for an overhaul of the federally subsidized meals dished out to 31 million students each year.
Not surprisingly, frozen pizza makers and potato growers pushed back on the USDA proposals. Schools also complained that the changes would have cost too much money, and some politicians and school administrators said the government shouldn't be in the business of telling school districts that they can't serve specific foods.
Citing financial concerns and a lack of data on the potential benefits of the USDA proposals, Congress blocked the following requirements:
- Limiting starchy vegetables, including corn, peas and potatoes to two servings a week, and requiring weekly minimums of leafy greens and vitamin-rich orange veggies. This measure was aimed at reducing kids' consumption of French fries, which some schools serve daily. (A group of senators with farmer constituents, led by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, successfully blocked this provision.)
- Preventing two tablespoons of tomato paste — roughly the amount on a serving of pizza — from being classified as a serving of vegetable. The USDA wanted to increase the conversion, and allow no less than a half-cup of tomato paste — too much to put on a pizza, but adequate for more nutrient-dense meals like pasta, chili, ragout and soup — to equal a serving of vegetables. Federally subsidized lunches are required to have a minimum number of vegetables to be served.
- Limiting sodium in school meals. Congress wants to hold off until more study is done on the long-term effects of sodium-reduction requirements.
- Requiring half of all grains and breads to come from whole grains, rather than refined sources. Congress requested that the USDA define "whole grains" before regulating them.
The USDA's recommendations, originally announced in January, would have significantly revamped the standard school menu, as evidenced by a pair of before-and-after weekly menus [PDF] — one based on the current guidelines, and the other based on the proposed updates. "This is a huge step forward and USDA deserves lots of support for doing this," wrote Marion Nestle, a nutrition professor at New York University and the author of Food Politics, on her blog at the time. It's a shame the agency didn't get it.
Meredith Melnick is a reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @MeredithCM. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.
Monday, November 14, 2011
The Secret Farm Bill
By Mark Bittman November 8, 2011 NYT
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/the-secret-farm-bill/?utm_source=Food%2BTech+Connect+Newsletter&utm_campaign=0d55569f6c-Food_Tech_Bytes_11_14_11_11_20_1111_14_2011&utm_medium=email#
The Republican-manufactured budget crisis of this past summer — remember? — resulted in a “solution” that’s hijacking what little representative democratic process we have left. Equally sad is that the so-called supercommittee — charged with creating an outline for reducing the deficit by $1.2 trillion over 10 years — may preclude full discussion of the farm bill.The
It’s the farm bill that largely shapes food and agriculture policy, and — though much of it finances good programs — ultimately supports the cynical, profit-at-any-cost food system that drives obesity, astronomical health care costs, ethanol-driven agriculture and more, creating further deficits while punishing the environment.
The farm bill is written every five years. Although the current one doesn’t expire until September, the next one may be all but wrapped up by your first bite of turkey, because the leaders of the House and Senate agriculture committees — a group of four, representing Oklahoma, Michigan, Minnesota and Kansas (do you see a pattern here?) — are working feverishly to draw up a proposal in time to submit it to the supercommittee before the Nov. 23 deadline.
This leaves many advocates and progressives in the world of food, environment, health and poverty in the odd position of trying to influence the group of four’s report to the supercommittee while hoping the process fails. Because if the supercommittee cannot agree on deficit reduction (and it probably won’t, unless stubborn Republicans cave on revenues or Democrats misplace their spines again), we’ll see automatic cuts made to the bloated defense budget that we otherwise would not. (Although the Pentagon’s defenders on the Hill are looking for wiggle room.)
Still. If recommendations by the four farm-state people are folded into the supercommittee’s deficit reduction package, and that package passes, we could see five more years of food policy signed into law without so much as a spirited debate.
Welcome to the world of the secret farm bill, a world of intrigue and ambivalence.
Some think that there’s a better chance of influencing the supercommittee by lobbying the group of four than there is of passing an improved farm bill through the Republican-controlled house. Others think the atmosphere around food has changed, and an open policy discussion just might yield a farm bill that supports real food.
I’d rather think about dinner, but this stuff is distracting.
The group of four is aiming at $23 billion in cuts, with around $14 billion coming from commodity subsidies, $6 billion from conservation programs, and the rest from nutrition programs like food stamps, now more important than ever. Everyone (almost literally) wants the restructuring of subsidies, but it sounds as if direct payments would be replaced by a new “shallow-loss” protection plan, essentially free insurance that would cover revenue losses before the also heavily subsidized paid insurance kicks in. Replacing direct payments with shallow-loss protection may save some money, but does nothing to change the fact that the wrong people will get it.
And the devil is in the details. Will small and medium farms raising what are outrageously called “specialty crops” (fruits and vegetables!) be covered by shallow-loss? Will programs supporting new farms, local farms, organic food, access to real food by real people, be boosted? Probably not.
Few are privy to discussions of either the group of four or the supercommittee. Those in Congress who appear most concerned about the process are led by Representative Ron Kind, Democrat of Wisconsin, who, with 26 other members of Congress, sent a letter to the supercommittee urging it to reject the creation of new farm programs outside the normal legislative order. Meanwhile, Congress was flooded by 27,000 phone calls — encouraged by the excellent Food Democracy Now — protesting the secret farm bill.
Scores of legislators, farm and advocacy groups, individuals and other organizations have crafted proposals to be considered for the next farm bill (here are just a few), and at least some are slipping notes under the door of the group of four, hoping to influence their recommendations. Among the best of these is the Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act, a title that would strengthen local and regional agriculture and increase access to healthy food, introduced by Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, Democrat of Maine, and Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio.
I spoke with Pingree by phone on Monday. The title, she said, “looks at existing programs and tries to find ways to make them work for the small to medium-sized family farm, which is the side of agriculture that’s actually growing.” It would make it easier for small and new farmers to borrow money, get small grants and secure crop insurance. It would make it easier to use food stamps at farmers’ markets and buy local food for school lunches.
In short, it would be a huge step in the right direction, and asking your Congress representative to co-sponsor this title is worth five minutes of your time.
Pingree “was looking forward to a public hearing on those things that should be eliminated or encouraged, and re-evaluating how we treat food and agriculture in this country.” But with the farm bill headed for a quick (and secret) trip through the supercommittee, large-scale reforms like hers may not get the consideration they deserve. Although Pingree is optimistic that she’ll get at least some of her proposals included in the supercommittee report, without an out-in-the-open process real change will be shut out of the debate, as will entire states like California, whose gigantic agricultural industry produces the bulk of our “specialty crops.” (Fruits and vegetables, remember?) As for Vermont, Maine, Oregon and other states where small farms are gaining in number and strength: wait five years.
The Republican plan, of course, is to use everything — including the farm bill — as a tool for cuts. But a farm bill that preserves the status quo instead of addressing a food system that causes disease and wrecks the environment isn’t even marginally serious about deficit reduction. By 2030 Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease will combine for costs of more than $1.5 trillion — not over 10 years but annually! Need I remind you that these are both preventable, diet-related diseases?
The savings are in producing, selling, cooking and eating healthy food, in supporting the farmers who grow it and in getting it to everyone. The farm bill, which shapes agricultural policy, should re-shape it when it isn’t working, not replace a direct corn subsidy with a slightly cheaper indirect one.
Those who are ready and willing to make these arguments publicly may not even get that chance. Our food system deserves a fairer fight than that. So do we.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/the-secret-farm-bill/?utm_source=Food%2BTech+Connect+Newsletter&utm_campaign=0d55569f6c-Food_Tech_Bytes_11_14_11_11_20_1111_14_2011&utm_medium=email#
The Republican-manufactured budget crisis of this past summer — remember? — resulted in a “solution” that’s hijacking what little representative democratic process we have left. Equally sad is that the so-called supercommittee — charged with creating an outline for reducing the deficit by $1.2 trillion over 10 years — may preclude full discussion of the farm bill.The
It’s the farm bill that largely shapes food and agriculture policy, and — though much of it finances good programs — ultimately supports the cynical, profit-at-any-cost food system that drives obesity, astronomical health care costs, ethanol-driven agriculture and more, creating further deficits while punishing the environment.
The farm bill is written every five years. Although the current one doesn’t expire until September, the next one may be all but wrapped up by your first bite of turkey, because the leaders of the House and Senate agriculture committees — a group of four, representing Oklahoma, Michigan, Minnesota and Kansas (do you see a pattern here?) — are working feverishly to draw up a proposal in time to submit it to the supercommittee before the Nov. 23 deadline.
This leaves many advocates and progressives in the world of food, environment, health and poverty in the odd position of trying to influence the group of four’s report to the supercommittee while hoping the process fails. Because if the supercommittee cannot agree on deficit reduction (and it probably won’t, unless stubborn Republicans cave on revenues or Democrats misplace their spines again), we’ll see automatic cuts made to the bloated defense budget that we otherwise would not. (Although the Pentagon’s defenders on the Hill are looking for wiggle room.)
Still. If recommendations by the four farm-state people are folded into the supercommittee’s deficit reduction package, and that package passes, we could see five more years of food policy signed into law without so much as a spirited debate.
Welcome to the world of the secret farm bill, a world of intrigue and ambivalence.
Some think that there’s a better chance of influencing the supercommittee by lobbying the group of four than there is of passing an improved farm bill through the Republican-controlled house. Others think the atmosphere around food has changed, and an open policy discussion just might yield a farm bill that supports real food.
I’d rather think about dinner, but this stuff is distracting.
The group of four is aiming at $23 billion in cuts, with around $14 billion coming from commodity subsidies, $6 billion from conservation programs, and the rest from nutrition programs like food stamps, now more important than ever. Everyone (almost literally) wants the restructuring of subsidies, but it sounds as if direct payments would be replaced by a new “shallow-loss” protection plan, essentially free insurance that would cover revenue losses before the also heavily subsidized paid insurance kicks in. Replacing direct payments with shallow-loss protection may save some money, but does nothing to change the fact that the wrong people will get it.
And the devil is in the details. Will small and medium farms raising what are outrageously called “specialty crops” (fruits and vegetables!) be covered by shallow-loss? Will programs supporting new farms, local farms, organic food, access to real food by real people, be boosted? Probably not.
Few are privy to discussions of either the group of four or the supercommittee. Those in Congress who appear most concerned about the process are led by Representative Ron Kind, Democrat of Wisconsin, who, with 26 other members of Congress, sent a letter to the supercommittee urging it to reject the creation of new farm programs outside the normal legislative order. Meanwhile, Congress was flooded by 27,000 phone calls — encouraged by the excellent Food Democracy Now — protesting the secret farm bill.
Scores of legislators, farm and advocacy groups, individuals and other organizations have crafted proposals to be considered for the next farm bill (here are just a few), and at least some are slipping notes under the door of the group of four, hoping to influence their recommendations. Among the best of these is the Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act, a title that would strengthen local and regional agriculture and increase access to healthy food, introduced by Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, Democrat of Maine, and Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio.
I spoke with Pingree by phone on Monday. The title, she said, “looks at existing programs and tries to find ways to make them work for the small to medium-sized family farm, which is the side of agriculture that’s actually growing.” It would make it easier for small and new farmers to borrow money, get small grants and secure crop insurance. It would make it easier to use food stamps at farmers’ markets and buy local food for school lunches.
In short, it would be a huge step in the right direction, and asking your Congress representative to co-sponsor this title is worth five minutes of your time.
Pingree “was looking forward to a public hearing on those things that should be eliminated or encouraged, and re-evaluating how we treat food and agriculture in this country.” But with the farm bill headed for a quick (and secret) trip through the supercommittee, large-scale reforms like hers may not get the consideration they deserve. Although Pingree is optimistic that she’ll get at least some of her proposals included in the supercommittee report, without an out-in-the-open process real change will be shut out of the debate, as will entire states like California, whose gigantic agricultural industry produces the bulk of our “specialty crops.” (Fruits and vegetables, remember?) As for Vermont, Maine, Oregon and other states where small farms are gaining in number and strength: wait five years.
The Republican plan, of course, is to use everything — including the farm bill — as a tool for cuts. But a farm bill that preserves the status quo instead of addressing a food system that causes disease and wrecks the environment isn’t even marginally serious about deficit reduction. By 2030 Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease will combine for costs of more than $1.5 trillion — not over 10 years but annually! Need I remind you that these are both preventable, diet-related diseases?
The savings are in producing, selling, cooking and eating healthy food, in supporting the farmers who grow it and in getting it to everyone. The farm bill, which shapes agricultural policy, should re-shape it when it isn’t working, not replace a direct corn subsidy with a slightly cheaper indirect one.
Those who are ready and willing to make these arguments publicly may not even get that chance. Our food system deserves a fairer fight than that. So do we.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Kids And Teens See More Ads For Sugary Drinks
October 31, 2011 by Allison Aubrey
Kids and teens saw double the number of ads for soda in 2010 than they did in 2008.
From 2008 to 2010, children's and teens' exposure to television ads for soda doubled, according to a new report from the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University. And beverage companies targeted black and Hispanic kids more than others in recent ads, the report found.
Commercials for Coke and Dr. Pepper products led the increase. Pepsi actually showed young audiences 22 percent fewer commercials for its products in that same time period.
Under a voluntary agreement, beverage companies have pledged to improve advertising directed to kids. But "our results clearly show that the beverage industry's self-regulatory pledges are not working," says Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center.
The American Beverage Association takes issue with the report's conclusions. "This report is another attack by known critics in an ongoing attempt to single out one product as the cause of obesity when both common sense and widely accepted science have shown that the reality is far more complicated," writes president and chief executive officer Susan Neely in a statement.
Neely also points to research documenting a dramatic change in food and beverage advertising during children's programming.
Between 2004 and 2010, advertisements for soft drinks decreased by 96 percent, according to a study conducted by Georgetown Economic Services. It also found that, during the same time period, ads for fruit and vegetable juices increased by 199 percent. (The study was sponsored by the food and beverage industry.)
The beverage industry also says the new Rudd report does not adequately differentiate between ads directed to children (think: Nickelodeon's Back at the Barnyard) and marketing to teens and general audiences (think: Dancing With the Stars). Lots of programs capture adolescent audiences, but are not considered to be children's programming
Beverage companies currently follow guidelines of the Children's Advertising Review Unit of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, the self-regulatory body for children's advertising. But the industry also played a part in shaping those guidelines to suit their business model.
The Rudd Center, however, would like to see the government place strict regulations on companies advertising unhealthy foods, like sugary beverages, to children. The Federal Trade Commission says that, together with the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, it is developing "a set of principles to guide industry efforts to improve the nutritional profile of foods marketed directly to children ages 2-17 and to tap into the power of advertising and marketing to support healthful food choices." But so far, it looks like those guidelines are likely to be voluntary, too.
Kids and teens saw double the number of ads for soda in 2010 than they did in 2008.
From 2008 to 2010, children's and teens' exposure to television ads for soda doubled, according to a new report from the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University. And beverage companies targeted black and Hispanic kids more than others in recent ads, the report found.
Commercials for Coke and Dr. Pepper products led the increase. Pepsi actually showed young audiences 22 percent fewer commercials for its products in that same time period.
Under a voluntary agreement, beverage companies have pledged to improve advertising directed to kids. But "our results clearly show that the beverage industry's self-regulatory pledges are not working," says Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center.
The American Beverage Association takes issue with the report's conclusions. "This report is another attack by known critics in an ongoing attempt to single out one product as the cause of obesity when both common sense and widely accepted science have shown that the reality is far more complicated," writes president and chief executive officer Susan Neely in a statement.
Neely also points to research documenting a dramatic change in food and beverage advertising during children's programming.
Between 2004 and 2010, advertisements for soft drinks decreased by 96 percent, according to a study conducted by Georgetown Economic Services. It also found that, during the same time period, ads for fruit and vegetable juices increased by 199 percent. (The study was sponsored by the food and beverage industry.)
The beverage industry also says the new Rudd report does not adequately differentiate between ads directed to children (think: Nickelodeon's Back at the Barnyard) and marketing to teens and general audiences (think: Dancing With the Stars). Lots of programs capture adolescent audiences, but are not considered to be children's programming
Beverage companies currently follow guidelines of the Children's Advertising Review Unit of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, the self-regulatory body for children's advertising. But the industry also played a part in shaping those guidelines to suit their business model.
The Rudd Center, however, would like to see the government place strict regulations on companies advertising unhealthy foods, like sugary beverages, to children. The Federal Trade Commission says that, together with the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, it is developing "a set of principles to guide industry efforts to improve the nutritional profile of foods marketed directly to children ages 2-17 and to tap into the power of advertising and marketing to support healthful food choices." But so far, it looks like those guidelines are likely to be voluntary, too.
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