Federal policy recommendations

The Food Marketing Workgroup supports the policy recommendations of the federal Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children (IWG), which has been charged with creating voluntary guidelines for foods marketed to kids. The IWG, which formed in 2009, includes representatives from the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Federal Trade Commission.

Currently, each food and beverage company is able to determine its own nutrition standards for what foods are healthy enough to market to children. If adopted, the IWG guidelines would provide industry-wide consistency.

Learn more about Federal policy guidelines on marketing food to children

Stop subsidizing childhood obesity
Center for Science in the Public Interest

New strategies to improve food marketing to children
Health Affairs commentary by William H. Dietz

Reducing youths’ exposure to the marketing of unhealthy foods through regulation, policy, and effective industry self-regulation
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

The Knife and Fork Show
Featuring CSPI’s Margo Wootan discussing the ongoing battle over child-directed food advertisements, October 25, 2012

Food for thought: Proposal on food marketing to children [pdf]
Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children

Preliminary proposed nutrition principles to guide industry self-regulatory efforts [pdf]
Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children

Public forum on Interagency Working Group proposal [pdf]
Testimony of Margo Wootan, Director, Center for Science in the Public Interest, May 24, 2011

Blog: Myths and realities on proposed marketing guidelines [pdf]
David Vladeck, Director, Bureau of Consumer Protection, July 1, 2011

Sign-on letter to the Interagency Working Group [pdf]
Food Marketing Workgroup, July 14, 2011

Letter in support of the Interagency Working Group [pdf]
Researchers with expertise in nutrition, marketing, medicine, and public health

First Amendment letter to the IWG
Legal scholars

Legal Q&A: IWG cost-benefit analysis requirements [pdf]
National Policy & Legal Analysis Network to Prevent Childhood Obesity

Report: Putting nutrition into nutrition standards for marketing to kids [pdf]
Center for Science in the Public Interest. Authors Margo G. Wootan, Lindsay Vickroy, and Bethany Hanna Pokress.

Facts and myths about the IWG proposed voluntary standards [pdf]
Center for Science in the Public Interest

Assessing the job impact of IWG guidelines for marketing food and beverage products to children [pdf]
John Irons, Economic Policy Institute

How food company lobbying stalled the IWG process
Nancy Watzman, Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group