As the nation's waistline continues to expand, government, nutritionists, and parents have called on food and beverage manufacturers to make the foods advertised to our kids healthier -- meaning lower in calories, fat, sodium and sugar and more nutrient dense.
The Council of Better Business Bureaus responded in 2006 by creating the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI). Working with the CFBAI, the nation's largest food and beverage companies have stepped up to the plate and changed what's on it. Under our existing program, the content of kids' meals advertised on TV has changed to include apples, low or non-fat milk and 100% juices. The sodium level of many products such as canned pastas and soups has fallen. And the sugar levels in advertised cereals and other products have decreased. Four major manufacturers of candy and soft drinks have pledged not to advertise at all on child-directed media.
In short, we have taken major steps to address concerns about the kinds of food and beverage products that were advertised on children's television programming and other kids' media.
But we realized there was still more to do. Today, the CFBAI announced a groundbreaking agreement that will further advance our participants efforts to change what is advertised to kids. As a result of a year-long effort we have established uniform nutrition criteria for participating companies' child-directed advertising. These new criteria set challenging but realistic goals for further improving the products advertised to children.
In simple terms, now all cereals, all canned pastas, all packaged meals, and all dairy products produced by participating companies that are seen on children's TV must meet calorie, saturated fat, trans fat, sodium and sugar limits set by the CFBAI. In addition, they must include specified levels of fruits, vegetables, low/non-fat dairy, whole grains or other nutrients such as calcium or Vitamin D. If products do not meet these dual criteria, they cannot be advertised on child-directed media after December 31, 2013.
Today's announcement comes as a four agency working group, comprised of the FTC, USDA, FDA and CDC, takes comments on a broad set of proposed guidelines on food and beverage marketing to children. We are putting forth our new criteria as an alternative approach because we believe these carefully developed criteria represent the right way forward. Developed after more than a year of consideration, our new criteria reflects the hands-on experience of the industry experts familiar with the technical difficulties inherent in making changes to consumers' favorite foods and consumers' willingness to eat them. Similarly, our new criteria's innovative approach of setting limits by food categories recognizes the different roles foods play in the diet, and the different nutritional roles played by diverse foods like cereals, dairy products and peanut butters. A saturated fat limit that is appropriate for peanut butter, for example, wouldn't be appropriate for cereals. Finally, the new criteria we are announcing today are being implemented in an aggressive, 30-month period.
Good nutrition is about finding the right balance. In developing these new CFBAI criteria, we looked for the right balance that would promote the advertising of healthier foods to children while preserving a dynamic competitive market place. We think these criteria do that in a way that the government's proposed criteria don't. If the goal of the four agency working group is to encourage responsible industry efforts, then the way to do it is through giving these criteria the opportunity to work.