According to William Dietz, Director of the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity at the CDC, the 10 least healthy cereals are – coincidentally? – also the top 10 marketed directly to kids on TV. We haven’t checked the math to see if this is true, and we won’t bother to, because it seems that the quality of the cereals is on the way up – and the quantity of marketing may be on the way down – thanks to two events that happened – coincidentally? – in the past week or so.

On December 9, General Mills announced that it was cutting the sugar in all its kids’ cereals to “single digit levels.” (Each 4 grams of sugar on a package label equals about one teaspoon, so 9 grams of sugar would be two heaping teaspoons of sugar per serving.) Cerealmakers, including Kellogg, General Mills, and Post, have already been making welcome reductions in sugar levels over the past few years; while General Mills’ action takes it to the next step, the company has not announced a target date for achieving this laudable goal.

Less than a week later, on December 15, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) held a forum in Washington, D.C. titled “Sizing up Food Marketing and Childhood Obesity,” at which a federal working group revealed possible new guidelines for foods advertised to kids 17 and under. It’s important to note that these standards are not yet final and in any event will be “guidelines” rather than legally-enforceable regulations. In any event, according to testimony from FDA’s Barbara Schneeman as reported on LaVidaLocavore, three different standards that may affect whole grain foods are being considered:

Standard One: Certain foods are exempt from standards two and three. Those are 100% fruit or fruit juices, 100% vegetables or vegetable juices (that don’t exceed 140mg of sodium per serving), 100% nonfat or lowfat milk, yogurt, 100% whole grain products, and 100% water.

Standard Two: Foods marketed to children should provide a meaningful contribution to a healthful diet. They are considering two options here:
Option A: A food must contain at least 50% by weight [of] one of the following: a fruit, a vegetable, whole grain, fat free or low fat milk, yogurt, fish, extra-lean meat or poultry, eggs, or nuts. (Do beans or seeds fit in there somewhere?)
Option B: This version uses the food pyramid to determine how many servings of each food group a person should eat per day. They assume people eat 4 times daily and thus divide those serving numbers by 4. ¼ of the recommended servings per day is a “meaningful contribution” of a food group.

Standard Three: This standard deals with nutrients to limit in the diet. They are:
•    Saturated fat: 1g or less per serving, and not more than 15% of calories
•    Trans fat: 0g
•    Sugar (Added sugars): There is no reference value so they looked at guidelines recommending no more than 267 “discretionary calories” in a 2000 calorie diet and did some math there to come up with a value of 13g of added sugar per serving to qualify something as “high in added sugar.” However, if a food has a small serving size, then they base their math on a serving of 50g of that food. Therefore, if a serving of a food is 30g, it’s not allowed to have over 13g of added sugar in a 30g serving. It can have 13g or less of added sugar in a 50g serving (or only 7.8g of added sugar in a 30g serving).
•    Sodium: This would ideally be 140mg/serving but that would disqualify a LOT of foods. Therefore, they decided to go with 200mg/serving instead.

What does this mean for whole grain products?  If Standard 1 or 2A above make it to the finish line (Congress has requested a report by July 15, 2010 – then it’s anyone’s guess what happens next), we’ll see manufacturers reformulating foods to contain at least 50% whole grain by weight – and if possible 100% whole grain. If Standard 2B were followed, this might mean foods would aim for ¾ of a serving of whole grain per portion.

Even when regulations aren’t the end result, reports like these often act as a catalyst to food producers, who welcome the level playing field provided by having someone step up to the plate with definite standards. If their competitors have to follow ‘em, then everyone faces the same R&D expenses, and everyone enjoys the same powerful incentive to figure out how to make products that are both healthy and delicious.

Possible new standards come none too soon. According to Professor Dale Kunkel of the University of Arizona, foods advertised to kids are overwhelmingly less healthy ones. Kunkel recently completed a study that divided foods into three groups, as promoted by the U.S. Dept of Health & Human Services: “Go” foods (fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy, etc.) that can be eaten almost without restriction; “Slow” foods (refined grains, sports drinks, etc.) that should be eaten less often; and“Whoa” foods (such as french fries, lunch meat, cookies, muffins) that should be eaten only on special occasions, in small portions. His study found that 72.4% of kids’ food ads are for “Whoa” foods, and only 1% of ads depict “Go” foods.

Parents, while you’re waiting for the new guidelines, remember you’re always free to show some backbone and enforce your own guidelines.  As one of the WGC’s favorite pediatricians, Dr. Alan Greene, said to us once, “Feeding a child is a profound act. The foods we invite into our children’s bodies determine how their organs will develop and function the rest of their lives.”  (Cindy)