The food and advertising industries have launched a multi-pronged campaign to squash government efforts to create voluntary nutritional guidelines for foods marketed to children.
Calling themselves the Sensible Food Policy Coalition, the nation’s biggest foodmakers, fast-food chains and media companies, including Viacom and Time Warner, are trying to derail standards proposed by four federal agencies. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has also lent its lobbying muscle to the effort.
“If you look at rising rates of obesity, one in three kids is either overweight or obese. That percentage is growing. I don’t think anyone thinks the status quo is okay...” says David Vladeck, director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the FTC in an interview.