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WASHINGTON - US food manufacturers and advertisers yesterday outlined new guidelines designed to rein in the promotion of junk food to children, but the effort was immediately derided by some critics as inadequate.
Under the initiative backed by 10 of the largest food companies, the industry would voluntarily tighten standards and impose new requirements on advertising to kids on television and in video games.
Signing on to the new guidelines are the US unit of Cadbury Schweppes, Campbell Soup, Coca-Cola, General Mills, Hershey, Kellogg, Kraft Foods, McDonald's, PepsiCo and Unilever.
These companies account for more than two-thirds of children's food and beverage television advertising expenditures, the council said.
The initiative was immediately criticised by the nonprofit Centre for Science in the Public Interest, whose director said the industry guidelines were changed only "at the fringes" and imposed no restrictions on the content of advertised junk food.
Since 1980, US obesity rates have tripled among adolescents aged 13 to 17 and doubled among younger children, according to a Government report this year.
- REUTERS
