Over two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese, and it appears kids are encouraged to take after their parents. According to the CDC, 35% of children between the ages of 6 and 19 are overweight. Two recent studies focusing on children and food have shown manufacturers overwhelmingly market less-than-healthy choices to kids, both in advertisements and in restaurants. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released a study that analyzed the expenses of 44 companies that manufacture and market food items to children and teens. The study found these companies spent $1.6 billion dollars marketing and advertising items such as cereal, snacks, baked and prepared goods, and candy and desserts. Baked goods accounted for the highest proportion of “youth-directed expenditures” to total marketing costs, while fresh fruits and vegetables had the lowest, spending only $11.4 million. Traditional media such as television and print still command about half of the dollars spent on advertising, and the Internet, perhaps because it is so much cheaper and yet so prevalent in the lives of the targeted populations, accounted for only about $77 million, or 5% of the total. However, fully two-thirds of the companies indicated they had some kind of presence on the web, whether through a webpage, “advergames,” or podcasts and webisodes. Cross-promotions, linking a popular movie or television show to any number of food items, were also extensively used, as were other product tie-ins and celebrity endorsements. Only 13 companies have agreed to participate in the FTC’s advertising initiative, which requires companies to follow five advertising tenets limiting their advertising of less-healthy options to these crucial age groups. Four of the companies do not market at all to children under 12, while the other nine have pledged to only market “healthy dietary choices.” However, each company is left to its own devices when determining what qualifies as healthy.

The second study, conducted by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) showed that overall “kids’ menus” at a variety of fast-food, fast-casual and sit-down chains contain very few healthful combinations of food that clock in at reasonable caloric totals. Most children should take in between 1,200 to 1,600 calories daily, depending on age and activity level, but many of the combinations tested provided over half, and in some cases three-quarters of, a child’s daily caloric needs. The CSPI looked at every possible combination of entree, beverage and side item available at the top 25 chain restaurants that offered a separate children’s menu. Of the 19 locations that met this criteria, the CSPI determined that 13 provided “adequate nutrition information,” while the remaining 6 did not provide any nutritional information. Fried chicken, whether in nugget, strip or part form, was overwhelmingly available, as were French fries. Fruit and vegetables were available at less than half the restaurants. 100% of the kids’ meals offered in five restaurants, including KFC and Taco Bell, were over the caloric limit established by the CSPI, although a few restaurants, including Subway and Arby’s, did offer healthier alternatives. Some meal combinations contained over 1,000 calories. Both studies recommended alternatives to the current situations with the most commonly echoed recommendation being the need to market healthier alternatives such as fruits and vegetables as well as the need to reduce the fat, sugar and salt in existing alternatives without losing flavor. Both studies also concede the restaurants and manufacturers have made some strides but that more changes need to be made in order to perpetuate some level of change in the obesity levels of children. Currently children menus are more of a problem than any sort of solution.