Food makers resist lawmakers’ proposal for guidelines in marketing to children

“The food and advertising industries are pushing back against an Obama administration proposal that calls for food makers to voluntarily limit the way they market sugary cereals, salty snacks and other foods to children and teens. . .

“The guidelines, ordered by Congress and written by a team from the Federal Trade Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Agriculture Department, ignited a debate about the role of marketing in soaring obesity rates among children.”

A representative of the Grocery Manufacturers Association argued that de facto regulations would not solve the childhood obesity epidemic, but they would hurt business.  Why is that reasoning illogical?

When food is what makes you sick

This year one in six Americans will get sick from eating contaminated food, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

"The most troublesome combination is campylobacter-laden poultry, which sickens more than 600,000 people annually, resulting in nearly 7,000 hospitalizations. Next on the list, which was based on a decade’s worth of data about disease outbreaks, deaths and costs and a peer-reviewed survey of experts, were pork contaminated with toxoplasma and deli meats tainted with listeria. 

"The most problematic pathogen was salmonella, which appeared four times — in combination with poultry, complex foods (i.e., non-meat dishes composed of multiple ingredients), produce and eggs — and caused just over 250 deaths and nearly 16,000 hospitalizations."

“'At the end of the day, you can make sure you cook everything thoroughly and be ultra-careful about cross-contamination, but this issue won’t go away just by keeping your kitchen clean, or being vegetarian, or even purchasing local meat or vegetables and buying organics,' says Jessica Liebler, a research scientist at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services who specializes in infectious diseases in food systems.  'This is a problem for everyone who eats.'”