Food and Media Companies Lobby to Weaken Guidelines on Marketing Food to Children

[Commentary] A major lobbying push by a powerful group of food and media companies appears to be working, with a federal agency indicating it would back off on parts of proposed voluntary guidelines for marketing food to children.

The guidelines are meant to combat childhood obesity. Also, language in a pending congressional spending bill, one of several that Congress must approve before the end of the year to keep the government running, threatens to prohibit the agency, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), from issuing a final version of the nutritional guidelines at all without doing a cost-benefit analysis first. Big companies such as Nestle, Kellogg, Viacom, McDonalds, General Mills, and Time Warner have indicated on official reports that they have lobbied on the controversial proposed guidelines; all together such companies have reported spending more than $37 million on lobbying this year. Most of these companies have a long list of concerns on Capitol Hill of which the nutrition guidelines are just one; however the totals reported demonstrate how powerful a presence these entities have in Washington. Most are also major sources of campaign money for members of Congress.