Diabetes doctors: NYC big-soda ban is just a start

Ransdell Pierson, Reuters, June 21, 2012

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Doctors treating the casualties of the global obesity epidemic say an unpopular proposal to limit soda portions in New York City should be just the beginning of stricter regulation of unhealthy foods.

Public opinion polls show a majority of Americans oppose New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to limit single servings of sugary drinks to 16 ounces (0.45 kilograms) at restaurants and other public venues.

Many view the measure as unwelcome government intervention in their daily diets.

But exasperated diabetes specialists say people need even greater protections from a food industry that keeps enticing them with ever-bigger portions, as more than two-thirds of the country's adults are now overweight or obese. Excess weight contributes to health problems from diabetes to hypertension.

"We're spending billions of dollars for drugs to cure the problem after the problem happens, instead of preventing the problem," said Dr. Bryce Palchick, a general practitioner in Pittsburgh.

"This goes beyond individual freedom; if you have diabetes and end up in the hospital, somebody else is paying for your bills if you're not paying for it yourself," Palchick said in an interview at the American Diabetes Association annual meeting in Philadelphia last week. 

"Not only are you endangering your own life, you're making everybody else pay for it."

Obesity accounts for $190 billion in annual U.S. medical costs -- or almost 21 percent of the total, according to a recent Lehigh University study. On average, obese individuals incur $2,741 higher medical bills each year than other people do, the study said.

A report presented this week by the American Medical Association estimated that 46 percent of the nation's intake of added sugars came from beverages. It said increasing taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages to a penny per ounce would lead to a 5 percent drop in the prevalence of people who are overweight and obese, and cut medical costs by $17 billion within a decade.

Other medical experts predict the scope of the problem will lead to further restrictions on food portions, from oversized hamburgers to super-size servings of French fries. New York City may be one of the first major centers to adopt new rules and become a template for other regions across the United States, they said.

"It wouldn't be unreasonable to consider other high-calorie and empty-calorie foods" for regulation, said Dr. Andrew Ahmann, a professor of endocrinology at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland.

He did express concern, however, that such intervention would be most costly to lower-income people, who rely more on the cheaper fare of fast-food restaurants.

Bloomberg's soda proposal might seem a little over-reaching, but makes total sense from a health perspective, said Karen Weiland, a nurse practitioner from Ohio State University Medical Center in Columbus.

"The person gets a huge jolt of sugar, and there's no protein or fat in the soda to mitigate that, and the body's insulin is not equipped to deal with that," she said. "Plus it's adding a lot of calories nobody needs."

Weiland expects New York to regulate other high-fat or high-calorie foods within a year or two and for such restrictions to "go global," as other governments follow suit.

However, the proposed soda restrictions face stiff opposition.

Coca-Cola Co has called the Bloomberg proposal an insult to New Yorkers. And the American Beverage Association, which represents that company as well as PepsiCo Inc and other soda makers, is fighting the measure.

The city's Board of Health is expected to vote on the measure by September, after a three-month public comment period. If approved, the regulations would take effect in March.

Even so, they could face a court challenge from opponents, including a coalition of the beverage association, the National Restaurant Association, the National Association of Theatre Owners and others.

"We're watching developments, but I can't tell you at this point what we will do" in terms of legal or other strategy, said Gary Klein, general counsel of the theater owners group.

GLOBAL PROBLEM

Bloomberg's proposal follows a series of failures by individual U.S. states and local governments to introduce new taxes on sugary drinks. Residents of Richmond, California, will vote in November on a proposed 1-cent-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. The city would use the estimated annual proceeds of $2 million to $8 million for soccer fields, school gardens and health programs for children.

Governments abroad have already begun to embrace taxes and other regulation on foods that contribute to weight gain.

Denmark imposed a tax last year on foods containing more than 2.3 percent saturated fats -- lifting the costs of butter by 30 percent and a bag of chips by 8 percent. A year earlier, the country had raised excise taxes on chocolate, ice cream, sugary drinks and candy by 25 percent.

In 2011, Hungary started taxing prepackaged foods high in sugar, salt or caffeine -- including carbonated sugary drinks, cookies, jams and instant soups. Finland introduced a tax the same year on sweets, chocolates and ice cream, and raised its existing excise tax on soft drinks.

Belgium, Ireland, Romania, Italy and the United Kingdom have considered similar measures as obesity rates among their citizens catch up to the United States.

Even Tasmania, whose isolation has protected many animal species from extinction since the Ice Age, is succumbing to fast food, said Dr. Gary Kilov, a primary care doctor from the Australian state who attended the diabetes meeting.

"There has been a doubling of childhood obesity in the last decade, and this pretty much reflects what's happening in all the Western world," he said. "Food is cheap, and lives are busy, so we opt for convenience over activity."

Australia now has one of the world's lowest smoking rates after emulating Bloomberg's earlier ban on the practice in bars and restaurants, Kilov said. But the New York big-soda ban does not go far enough, he added.

"To select soft drinks as the sole target of obesity is laughable; it's just fiddling at the edges," he said. "A better option would be an empty-calories tax on sugary drinks and high-fat foods and putting that money back into health and education. Tax your french fries, your doughnuts and ice cream."

Dr. Saleem Qureshi, an endocrinologist from Islamabad, Pakistan, said he wholeheartedly supported Bloomberg's big-soda restriction and expected his country to follow suit.

"It is time for the government to interfere," Qureshi said. "It's not about the words 'sugar' or 'diabetes' -- it's about the heart attacks, the strokes, the kidney failure, the blindness and the amputations that come from diabetes. And it's hitting at a younger and younger age."

(Editing by Michele Gershberg and Lisa Von Ahn)

The World Is Fat (Especially America)

Catherine Rampell, The New York Times, June 19, 2012

The world could stand to shed a few pounds. Fifteen million metric tons, in fact, according to a new study.

In the study, published in the open-access journal BMC Public Health, researchers used country-specific data on body mass index and heights to estimate the biomass of the world's entire adult population.

They concluded that in 2005, the global adult human biomass was about 287 million metric tons. (A metric ton is 1,000 kilograms, or about 2,200 pounds.) About 15 million metric tons of that biomass were the extra pounds of people who were overweight (here defined as having a body mass index value above 25). About 3.5 million metric tons of that total biomass were because of obesity (having a B.M.I. above 30).

The United States is to blame for a lot of those spare tires. While America holds about 5 percent of the world's adult population, it accounts for about a third of the excess weight because of obesity.

Japan and the United States in particular demonstrate the extreme variations in weight. Both are rich countries, but the American population is one of the most overweight in the world and Japan's is one of the leanest. The average B.M.I. in Japan in 2005 was 22.9, and in the United States it was 28.7.

If all countries had the same B.M.I. distribution as Japan, the world's total biomass would fall by 14.6 million metric tons, or 5 percent.

If, on the other hand, all countries were about as overweight as the United States, total biomass across the globe would increase by 58 million metric tons, or about 20 percent.

These numbers matter not only because of the health concerns over obesity. They matter also because of the energy required to feed people who are obese. Malthus worried about the sustainability of population growth; this study's authors worry about the sustainability of population girth.

"When people think about environmental sustainability, they immediately focus on population," one of the paper's authors, Ian Roberts, told the BBC. "Actually, when it comes down to it, it's not how many mouths there are to feed. It is how much flesh there is on the planet."

To get a sense of scale, here is a chart showing how many kilocalories a day were required per person in 2005, from a selection of countries:

If all countries were as fat as the United States, the resulting increase in global weight would increase energy requirements by 261 kilocalories a day per adult. That's the same as adding the energy requirements of 473 million adults of average B.M.I. to the planet.

"Tackling population fatness may be critical to world food security and ecological sustainability," the authors conclude.

Some caveats: The authors note that the data available to estimate biomass is spotty, so they made some debatable assumptions. For example, they assumed that the B.M.I.'s within each country followed a normal distribution. Their estimates for calories required to maintain a given weight also do not reflect different amounts of physical labor typical in different countries.

Progress Is Our Most Important Product

Mark Bittman,  The New York Times, June 19, 2012

Certainly there is plenty wrong with our food “system,” and it’s easy to point that out week after week. Every day there’s more bad news, and when credible people say that 900 million Indians are hungry — really hungry, not “dying” for a Snickers — the tendency is to get so depressed that one overlooks progress. (Perhaps, too, New Yorkers are born to kvetch.)

But here in the United States at least, every week there’s evidence that the pendulum is swinging. One could allow pessimism to reign, but it’s my sworn duty to occasionally point out some of The Good Stuff. And there’s been plenty the last few weeks. (All tempered, of course, but we’ll try to tame the inner curmudgeon here.)

To wit:
The Walt Disney Co. announced a curb on junk food marketing aimed at kids, to be implemented by 2015. At that point, all products advertised on any of Disney’s media outlets must meet certain nutrition guidelines. Kudos to Disney for taking the lead on this issue, and though we’d like to see others follow suit, this should not be a voluntary system based on the good will of individual companies: we need real standards to which all advertisers and marketers must adhere. Attempts to curb junk food marketing through voluntary guidelines have been nearly useless, and junk food is now advertised on school buses and in schools. It’s unlikely Disney is setting a real trend; it’s just showing what needs to be the norm.
McDonald’s is also helping to set new norms, by establishing a 10-year timeline to phase out pork gestation crates from its U.S. supply chain. And other companies have set earlier deadlines. Even though one wishes that McDonald’s would get a move on, this is big. Kroger, the nation’s largest grocery chain, has urged its suppliers to speed up the elimination of gestation crates, and a New Jersey Senate committee has approved a proposed law that would ban them.

Write this down: gestation crates will be gone within a generation.

Perhaps equally significant, Subway has announced not one, not two, but three new vegan sandwiches, on what appears to be a trial run. It will be interesting to see how they do, and how the company promotes them because Subway talks a lot about their “healthier” fast food, but promotes the BMT, steak-and-cheese and other high-fat sandwiches like mad.

Speaking of Subway, in 2011 the chain said it cut salt by 15 percent across the board. This might be good news, but only if you believe that salt is harmful. The real good news is in this Gary Taubes piece which essentially maintains that everything you thought you knew about salt was wrong. Pass the shaker.

A court ruled that the Food and Drug Administration must reconsider two petitions urging the agency to restrict the subtherapeutic use of antibiotics on livestock. This decision follows a March order that the F.D.A. begin withdrawing the use of two major classes of antibiotics from livestock production if they cannot be proved to be safe. The most recent ruling could be read as a scolding: “For over thirty years, the Agency has been confronted with evidence of the human health risks associated with the widespread subtherapeutic use of antibiotics in food-producing animals, and, despite a statutory mandate to ensure the safety of animal drugs, the Agency has done shockingly little to address these risks.” (Why is curbing antibiotic use so critical? Read Maryn McKenna.)

We need the F.D.A., and we need it to do its job well. It’s good that it’s also considering placing a ban on BPA in infant formula containers (although one could easily say “just do it”), and that it denied the Corn Refiners Association’s petition to change the name of high-fructose corn syrup to “corn sugar.” (Although, come on. What difference would it make? You could call it Gold Spun From Straw for all it matters. It’s still not food.)

The Farm Bill is a mess, and no one understands it (which is why it’s so susceptible to lobbyists), but at least this time some people are paying attention. First there was the laudable Local Farms, Food, and Jobs Act from Representative Chellie Pingree, Democrat of Maine. Then Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, introduced an amendment mandating that the government study the link between sugary beverages and obesity. Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont, suggests that an amendment be added allowing states to require GMO labeling. And the Senate at large voted to reject the Tea-Party-led effort to cut nutrition assistance nearly in half.

It’s a bit of a mess. Hundreds of amendments to the farm bill have been introduced, and my guess is that ultimately we’ll be saying what we said five years ago — “Wait ‘til next time!” — but there are signs that more members of Congress are at least trying to do the right thing.

It’s our job to get more of those types elected come November. (To make that easier, there will soon be a scorecard of how your elected representatives are acting, Farm-Bill-wise.)
Finally, and this is a good omen, an Ohio judge has ruled that a state law limiting the ability of local governments to regulate restaurants in order to improve public health is not constitutional. To disambiguate this, as Wikipedia would say, it’s O.K. in Ohio, according to this judge, anyway, for municipalities to boss restaurants around, health-wise.)
And why not?

Marion Nestle: The soda industry strikes back

Marion Nestle, Food Politics,  June 11, 2012

Mayor Bloomberg’s proposal to limit sugary soft drinks to 16 ounces has elicited an industry counter attack as well as much attention to the role of sugary drinks in obesity.

The soda industry established a new organization, “Let’s Clear It Up,” with a website to spin the science.

Soda is a hot topic. And the conversation is full of opinions and myths, but not enough facts. America’s beverage companies created this site to clear a few things up about the products we make. So read on. Learn. And share the clarity. Myth: The obesity epidemic can be reversed if people stop drinking soda. [I'm not aware that anyone is claiming this.  Bloomberg's proposal is aimed at making it easier for soda drinkers to reduce calorie intake.] Fact: Sugar-sweetened beverages account for only 7% of the calories in the average American’s diet, according to government data. [The figure applies to everyone over the age of 2---to those who do and do not drink sodas.  The percentage is much higher for soda drinkers.]

Coca-Cola is using a second strategy: divert attention.  Its full-page ad in Sunday’s New York Times said:

Everything in moderation.  Except fun, try to have lots of that. Our nation is facing an obesity problem and we’re taking steps to be part of the solution.  By promoting balanced diets and active lifestyles, we can make a positive difference.

By “balanced diets” Coke means varying package sizes.  By “active lifestyles” Coke means partnerships with Boys & Girls Clubs of America and gifts to national parks.  This approach merits its own website: livepositively.com.
And then we have USA Today’s not-to-be-missed interview with Katie Bayne, Coke’s president of sparkling beverages in North America:

Q: Is there any merit to limits being placed on the size of sugary drinks folks can buy? A: Sugary drinks can be a part of any diet as long as your calories in balance with the calories out. Our responsibility is to provide drink in all the sizes that consumers might need. [Need?] Q: But critics call soft drinks “empty” calories. A: A calorie is a calorie. What our drinks offer is hydration. That’s essential to the human body. We offer great taste and benefits whether it’s an uplift or carbohydrates or energy. We don’t believe in empty calories. We believe in hydration. [Water, anyone?]

Finally, there’s the Washington Post interview with Todd Putman, a former Coke marketing executive now in recovery.

Putman, whose positions at Coca-Cola included U.S. head of marketing for carbonated drinks, said in the interview that among his achievements was tailoring the company’s national advertising campaigns to specific groups. The approach helped Coca-Cola intensify marketing to target audiences such as African Americans and Hispanics. “It was just a fact that Hispanics and African Americans have higher per capita consumption of sugar-based soft drinks than white Americans,” he said. “We knew that if we got more products into those environments those segments would drink more.”

Is the soda industry behind the Center for Consumer Freedom’s Nanny Bloomberg ad?  I’ve yet to hear denials.

FT :Fatty food clampdown is hard to swallow

Louise Lucas and Alan Rappeport, the Financial Times, June 8, 2012

Winnie-the-Pooh: [tries to climb out the front door but is stuck] Oh, oh, help and bother! I’m stuck.
Rabbit: Oh, dear. Oh, gracious. Oh. Well, it all comes from eating too much.
– Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree
 

Food and drink manufacturers are, like Winnie-the-Pooh, in a tight spot. Ten days ago Michael Bloomberg, New York’s mayor, announced a ban on the sale of “supersized” sugary drinks in restaurants, cinemas and stadiums. And this week – prodded by Michelle Obama, the US first lady – Walt Disney, the media giant behind the film versions of A.A. Milne’s Pooh stories, said it would ban junk food ads on its children’s TV programmes and websites by 2015.

These measures, coming on top of taxes on unhealthy foods in places such as Denmark, Hungary and France, hurt. For this is an industry that relies on marketing (which swallows up about $1 in every $10 of revenue) to sell products that no one needs and which, in excess, can lead to obesity.

 

The big fear for food producers is that legislation, taxation and regulatory clampdowns such as those that engulfed the tobacco industry will come to plague them – despite their protestation that food, unlike cigarettes, does not kill. 

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, the two biggest beverage makers, both flagged a potential dent to earnings from legislative changes long before Mr Bloomberg hatched his plans. In its most recent annual report, Coca-Cola topped a list of more than 30 risk factors” for its profitability with concerns about obesity, related negative publicity and the possibility of new legislation. 

“Obesity and other health concerns may reduce demand for some of our products,” it said.

 “In no way can we [the industry] be complacent,” says Fiona Dawson, managing director at Mars Chocolate UK. She argues that “progressive” companies, such as Mars, are staving off legislation by keeping ahead of the curve – reducing fat, sugar and salt, and curbing advertising to children.

Some believe the health lobby will receive an extra boost from cash-strapped governments, pointing to the introduction last year of Denmark’s “fat tax”, which charges DKr16 ($2.70) per kilogramme of saturated fat in a product. “The nature of budget deficits worldwide is going to lead to more creative taxation under the guise of health,” says Martin Deboo, a food and drink analyst at Investec, the UK brokerage.

Companies are responding with a range of strategies, from working with government, to self-regulation, to lobbying to stave off legislation.

Mars ditched all advertising to under-12s globally in 2007; Nestlé, the world’s biggest food company by sales, stopped advertising to children under six last September and limited the products it advertises to those below 12.

But not all their peers followed suit, which makes Disney’s ban a big blow to the industry.

“It was a pretty significant thing,” Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, told the Financial Times. “[Disney] were ... coming up against some components of the food and beverage industry in deciding that they weren’t going to allow certain products to be advertised because of their public health impact.”

Despite Disney’s move, restrictions on advertising unhealthy food are tighter in Europe than in the US, where one-third of American adults are obese, the highest percentage of any nation in the world.

Advertising restrictions were introduced in the UK in 2006, when the media regulator Ofcom announced a ban on ads for foods high in fat, sugar and salt around children’s viewing times.

European companies have also led the way in working with government to set policy. For example, in the industry group working under the UK government’s Public Health Responsibility Deal, set up in 2011, business interests have as many representatives as government and civil society combined.

Elsewhere, companies have worked to reformulate their products, eliminating as much sugar, salt and calories as they can while trying not to compromise taste: no one, as Ms Dawson points out, will buy a treat that does not taste good. 

Heinz discovered as much last year when it reduced the salt in its HP sauce, a favourite British accompaniment to eggs, bacon and sausage. As the mass-market Daily Mail newspaper trumpeted: “HP sauce’s recipe secretly changed after 116 years by American owners of the Great British Condiment.”

Changing recipes is not only risky; it also takes time and gobbles up cash. Mars, for example, has reduced saturated fats in its Mars bars and Snickers by 15 per cent. “But that took us five years and millions of pounds in research and development spending,” says Ms Dawson.

For some companies, the easier response is to follow the path set by their tobacco peers and head to emerging markets, where regulators are often more relaxed about the health implications of their products.

Carbonated drinks are already growing faster, admittedly from a lower base, in emerging markets than in the developed world. Latin America overtook North America in sales by volume in 2008, says Euromonitor, the data agency.

Although increasing their market share in emerging markets is the holy grail for many food companies, some caution against exaggerating the effects of regulation on sales in the developed world. 

“Imperial Tobacco doubled its profits in the UK in the last 20 years despite the tidal wave of regulation,” says Mr Deboo of the UK’s biggest cigarette maker. And, of course, Pooh eventually got out of his tight spot too – with a little help from his friends.

Diet plan stays off TV

Television networks are not likely to go on diets of their own following Walt Disney’s announcement this week that it was setting nutritional standards for food advertising on its children’s programmes, writes Emily Steel in New York.

While food and beverage companies spend an estimated $2bn a year in the US targeting ads at children, several of the country’s largest food and beverage companies, including Burger King, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, are already adopting nutritional guidelines to promote healthier eating to children.

“I suspect that [Disney’s move] is a moot point,” said Brian Wieser, a media analyst with Pivotal Research. “It is as if the TV networks were to say, ‘We’re not accepting tobacco ads’. Well, no tobacco ads are being created.”

The nutritional guidelines, set by the Children’s Food & Beverage Advertising Initiative, a self-regulatory group, aim to shift the products advertised to children to ones with more nutritional value. As a result, several marketers have tweaked their ads or their products to fit those standards.

Some of Disney’s competing TV networks, like Viacom’s Nickelodeon, have pledged to follow the guidelines. Other networks are not expected to follow Disney’s lead in adopting their own standards.

While Disney could receive a boost from positive public relations buzz, the effect on its ad revenues will be minimal, analysts say. Total ad spending from food, non-alcoholic beverage and fast food restaurant marketers on two Disney-owned networks with children-focused programming was $7.2m in 2011, according to Kantar Media, the ad-tracking firm. The estimate, however, is conservative because Disney said the guidelines would apply to other properties not tracked by Kantar. Advertising revenues for Disney’s media networks, including its international and domestic cable networks, were $7.6bn in 2011.

Some argue that Disney’s new guidelines go beyond industry standards, which they said were not strict enough. Only 16 food and beverage marketers have pledged to follow the standards, said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

“The foods that the CFBAI considers healthy – SpaghettiOs, mac and cheese, sugary cereals – are not foods most parents would consider to be healthy foods,” she said.

Who Should Be Responsible for the Health of Americans? (Shannon Brownlee)

She explains why it's critical for politicians like New York's Mayor Bloomberg, who recently proposed a ban on large sodas, and corporations like Disney - which plans to outlaw junk food ads during its children's TV programming - to pioneer healthier practices. 

Disney Junk-Food Ban Is Seen Costing It Less Than $7.2M

Edmund Lee, Bloomberg, June 5, 2012

Walt Disney Co. (DIS)’s plan to bar junk- food advertising from children’s programming would have cost less than $7.2 million in television ad revenue if it were in effect last year, according to estimates by Kantar Media. 

That’s the amount that Disney generated from beverage and food commercials aimed at children in 2011, the New York-based research firm said. The figure is less a 10th of 1 percent of Disney’s total annual advertising sales. The company reported ad revenue of $7.6 billion for its media networks in its last fiscal year, an increase of 8 percent. 

Zenia Mucha, a spokeswoman for Burbank, California-based Disney, said the company doesn’t disclose ad revenue from individual networks or from particular advertisers. She said the Kantar figure was inaccurate, without elaborating. 

Disney announced today that the Disney XD cable network and its block of Saturday morning shows on ABC will bar advertising of foods and beverages that don’t meet its nutrition guidelines by 2015. The same restrictions also will apply to the Disney Channel and Disney Junior -- cable channels that feature sponsorships but no commercials and therefore aren’t counted by Kantar. 

Kantar’s estimates suggest that the change isn’t a big gamble for Disney, the world’s largest entertainment business. The company also stands to gain from promoting healthier Disney- endorsed foods. It’s developing a “Mickey Check” logo, which will indicate that products meet its nutritional standards. That will begin appearing by the end of 2012. 

The company unveiled the plan at an event today with first lady Michelle Obama, who has made healthy eating a signature issue of her office. Chief Executive Officer Robert Iger declined to comment on which products don’t meet the standards, beyond saying that there were “a lot.” 

“We hope to work with these companies so that they can continue advertising on our programs with a product that is nutritious and meets our guidelines,” he said at the event.

Giving parents assurance that Disney-branded products are healthy will ultimately will increase sales, Iger said. “We can create huge change without having the government step in.”

Promoting Nutrition, Disney to Restrict Junk-Food Ads

Brook Barnes, The New York Times, June 5, 2012

 

LOS ANGELES — The Walt Disney Company, in an effort to address concerns about entertainment’s role in childhood obesity, plans to announce on Tuesday that all products advertised on its child-focused television channels, radio stations and Web sites must comply with a strict new set of nutritional standards. 

The restrictions on ads extend to Saturday-morning cartoons on ABC stations owned by Disney. Under the new rules, products like Capri Sun drinks and Kraft Lunchables meals — both current Disney advertisers — along with a wide range of candy, sugared cereal and fast food, will no longer be acceptable advertising material. 

The initiative, which Disney plans to detail Tuesday at a Washington news conference with the first lady, Michelle Obama, stretches into other areas. For instance, Disney will reduce the amount of sodium by 25 percent in the 12 million children’s meals served annually at its theme parks, and create what it calls fun public service announcements promoting child exercise and healthy eating. 

The move follows the announcement last week of a plan by New York City to ban the sale of large sodas and other sugary drinks amid increasing concern about childhood obesity in America. 

Disney said that in adopting the new advertising standards it was largely following recommendations proposed last year by federal regulators. The suggestions were aimed at inducing the food industry to overhaul the way it marketed things like cereal, soda and snacks to children. 

Food companies have vociferously fought government regulation on advertising, saying they can take steps on their own. Disney acknowledged it would most likely lose some advertising revenue — it declined to say how much — but said that the benefits outweighed the downside. 
(Disney Channel does not currently accept traditional ads, although a range of promotions and sponsorships are allowed; other channels like Disney XD are supported by commercials.)

Disney’s ad restrictions apply to any programming targeted to children under 12, which includes popular live-action programs as well as cartoons. 

Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chairman, said he felt strongly that “companies in a position to help with solutions to childhood obesity should do just that,” but added: “This is not altruistic. This is about smart business.” 

Taking steps to combat childhood obesity allows Disney the opportunity to polish its brand as one families can trust — something that drives sales of everything from Pixar DVDs to baby clothes to theme park vacations. In addition, Disney has carefully studied the marketplace and executives say they believe there is increasing consumer demand for more nutritious food. 

Mr. Iger noted that health food for children had already become “a very, very solid business” for Disney. Since 2006 consumers have purchased about two billion servings of Disney-licensed servings of fruit and vegetables, according to the company. 

Margo G. Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said Disney’s plan put it “far ahead of competitors.” At the same time, she cautioned that Disney’s guidelines still fell short of what her organization would like to see, particularly for cereal. Disney’s new standards require cereal to contain less than 10 grams of sugar a serving, for instance, while Ms. Wootan would prefer about six grams. 

“This limits the marketing of the worst junk foods, but it won’t mean you’re only going to see ads for apples, bananas and oranges, either,” she said. 

On Tuesday, Disney will also introduce what it calls Mickey Check in grocery store aisles: Disney-licensed products that meet criteria for limited calories, saturated fat, sodium and sugar can display a logo — Mickey Mouse ears and a check mark — on their packaging. The logos will include the slogan, “Good For You — Fun Too!” 

Some elements of Disney’s campaign — the Mickey Check, in particular — could revive parental criticism that the company has a way of moving into areas it does not belong, such as approval over what foods children eat. 

Moreover, consumers have also come to distrust or ignore healthy eating symbols on packaging because so many food companies have introduced self-serving varieties, said Kelly D. Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University.

“Here comes Disney with yet another symbol, and it’s too early to say whether this will simply add to the chaos and confusion or actually help steer parents and kids as they shop,” Mr. Brownell said. 

Still, Mr. Brownell, who was given an advance briefing of Disney’s plans, said the effort was “enormously important.” He cautioned that he had not yet deeply examined Disney’s nutritional guidelines, but said “they appear quite good.” 

Disney developed the new nutrition standards with the assistance of two child health and wellness experts: James O. Hill, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, and Keith T. Ayoob, associate clinical professor of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. 

The company’s standards are based on the federal government’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Federal Trade Commission’s proposed guidelines for food marketing to children. Disney also looked at the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, a self-policing effort by food giants like Burger King and Campbell Soup to set their own marketing limits. 

Disney’s guidelines will be available starting Tuesday at www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/mohl. 

Disney’s new guidelines, which will not take effect until 2015 because of long-term contracts with advertisers, are likely to have a ripple effect through the children’s entertainment industry. Rivals like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network will face pressure to follow Disney’s lead. Advertisers spend some $950 million annually on television tailored to children under 12, according to industry estimates. 

“With this new initiative, Disney is doing what no major media company has ever done before in the U.S. — and what I hope every company will do going forward,” Mrs. Obama said in a statement. 

Food companies will also feel the effects. Giants like Pepsi and Kellogg in 2007, trying to squelch calls for government regulation, said they would stop advertising products that failed to meet various nutritional standards to children under 12. Food companies then started pushing healthier items and reformulating junk food products. 

Disney has sent similar dominoes falling in the past. In 2006, Disney said it would sharply curtail the use of its name and characters with foods high in sugar, salt and fat. Mickey Mouse stopped appearing on boxes of Pop-Tarts, and Buzz Lightyear and his “Toy Story” pals disappeared from McDonald’s Happy Meals. Within months, Nickelodeon and Discovery Kids announced similar restrictions; the 2007 effort by food companies to reel in advertising was also linked to Disney’s lead. 

As part of its Tuesday announcement, Disney will unveil a tightened version of the nutritional standards it first adopted in 2006, including a required additional 10 percent reduction in sugar in yogurt and flavored milk products. 

“We need to motivate consumers to make changes, and Disney, because of its sheer size and brand power, can do that better than anybody,” Mr. Ayoob said.

Food Insufficiency and Income Volatility in U.S. Households

Dahl, Molly, et al. Food Insufficiency and Income Volatility in U.S. Households: The Effects of Imputed Earnings in the Survey of Income and Program Participation.  Congressional Budget Office    March 2012, Working Paper 2012-07   Congressional Budget Office

"This paper explores how the use of imputed earnings data to measure income in the Survey of Income and Program Participation affects the observed relationship between household income volatility and food insufficiency. The study finds that the inclusion of imputed earnings data when measuring income volatility substantially understates the association between large drops in household income and food insufficiency. After excluding observations with imputed earnings, large drops in income are associated with a 1.3 percentage point increase in the probability of food insufficiency, although the estimate is not statistically significant at conventional levels."