Kids in Santa Clara County, California will no longer get toys with their fast food meals per a newly approved proposal which eliminates toys in meals that have more than 485 calories and high levels of fat, sugar, and salt. While implementation of this measure has been delayed a few months to allow fast food restaurants to make kids' meals more healthful, it's unlikely that this will happen. Yes, restaurants like McDonalds now offer apple slices instead of fries and low fat milk instead of soda, but even with one of these healthier selections it'll be tough to meet the guidelines. A typical kids meal that includes a cheeseburger, small french fry, and low fat chocolate milk contains 700 calories. If you swap out the fries for apple dippers (without caramel sauce) you're still at 505 calories.

The board of county supervisors who passed this measure stated that this will prevent restaurants from preying on children's love of toys and break the link between unhealthy food and prizes. Many organizations agree that food marketing to children has gotten out of hand. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the total amount spent on food marketing to children is about $10 billion a year and is everywhere from on television, on the radio, on the Internet, in magazines, through product placement in movies and video games, in schools, on product packages, as toys, on clothing and other merchandise, and almost anywhere a logo or product image can be shown.¹ 

Recommendations from the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity Report to the President (Solving the Problem of Childhood Obesity within a Generation) published last week support regulation of food marketing. The report argues that parents and caregivers want to provide good nutrition but often lack information that is clearly understandable and actionable. Instead, "confusing claims or labels on food packages and marketing campaigns make unhealthy choices easy and healthy choices hard." Thus, the report includes these private sector action items to empower parents and caregivers to make healthy choices for their families:

• The food and beverage industry should extend its self-regulatory program to cover all forms of marketing to children, and food retailers should avoid in-store marketing that promotes unhealthy products to children.
• All media and entertainment companies should limit the licensing of their popular characters to food and beverage products that are healthy and consistent with science-based nutrition standards.
• The food and beverage industry and the media and entertainment industry should jointly adopt meaningful, uniform nutrition standards for marketing food and beverages to children, as well as a uniform standard for what constitutes marketing to children.
• Industry should provide technology to help consumers distinguish between advertisements for healthy and unhealthy foods and to limit their children’s exposure to unhealthy food advertisements.
• If voluntary efforts to limit the marketing of less healthy foods and beverages to children do not yield substantial results, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could consider revisiting and modernizing rules on commercial time during children’s programming.

What do you think? Does the government need to step in and regulate food marketing to children and families? Or should the emphasis be on educating parents and caregivers on how to prepare fast and healthy meals at home? Do you think that taking away the toy will make the child more likely to want the salad and grilled chicken sandwich? Or make the parent less likely to purchase fast food?

¹Guidelines for responsible food marketing to children. (2005). Washington, D.C.: Center for Science in the Public Interest.