Advocate Questions Approach of Childhood Obesity/Media Task Force
by Ed Thomas
October 3, 2006
(AgapePress) - - The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced a new task force, which it will help to form early next year and which is designed to examine the possible effects of media and its advertising on childhood obesity. Recently, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin was quoted by Broadcasting and Cable magazine as saying he was troubled by the scientific research linking childhood obesity. Nevertheless, Martin agreed with other task force organizers, including Senator Sam Brownback, in feeling the task force, which will join government agencies and private commercial companies that advertise food to children, should ultimately look at industry solutions first before threatening any government regulation.
Dr. Susan Lynn, founder of Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood (CCC), thinks that suggestion might not be a good approach, however. Her organization, a coalition of health care professionals, educators, advocacy groups and concerned parents that collectively battle consumerism targeted at children, has been trying to get private companies that market to kids to voluntarily police themselves ever since the coalition's inception at the beginning of the decade.
"I think any conversation about marketing to children and food marketing to children, has to include the possibility of regulation, Lynn insists. "It's the threat of regulation that has gotten the food companies to take any steps at all," she notes.
Based on the CCC's experience with lobbying private companies, the coalition's founder says she questions whether the reported tack of the FCC's new media-and-childhood-obesity working group will really end up serving the best interests of children.
"What happens to the task force will depend in part on who's on the task force and also on how they see their mission," Lynn asserts. "And one of the things that's a little concerning to me is that it's my understanding that they've pretty much taken regulation off the table from the start."
Also, Lynn feels the task force needs to be composed of appointments that provide a balanced ratio of representatives from advocacy groups and public health organizations to representatives of food marketers. The composition and approach of the new FCC joint task force, she says, will be key factors in determining the study group's success.
Ed Thomas, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
