Chocolate Firm Eyes Diet Tips Amid Obesity Debate
 

Chocolate Firm Eyes Diet Tips Amid Obesity Debate
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=sto...od_dc&printer=1

By Begona Quesada

LONDON (Reuters) - A leading British chocolate manufacturer said on Friday it may include diet tips on its product labels as sports stars and celebrities were criticized for promoting unhealthy food blamed for a sharp rise in child obesity.


Cadbury Schweppes, one of the world's biggest international beverage and confectionery companies, said it had not decided what wording would be used on the labels, aimed at its British market, but added it would not be a warning.


"It is true we are looking at a number of options to provide better labeling for the consumer in terms of understanding what a balanced diet is," a spokeswoman for the company told Reuters.


Cadbury announced the move as The Lancet medical journal called for a stop to stars endorsing unhealthy food and amid warnings from health experts that obesity among children is a time bomb waiting to explode.


"Celebrity endorsement of junk food has to be banned," The Lancet said in an editorial, adding to a growing chorus of criticism in Europe and North America that foods and sweets with high fat or sugar content are causing a huge increase in obesity among children.


The journal also called for legislation to force the "junk food" industry to clean up its act and criticized the British government for allowing Cadbury to market chocolate in its Get Active campaign in a scheme that allows children to exchange chocolate wrappers for sports equipment.


"It takes a lot of chocolate wrappers: a volleyball valued at about 18 pounds ($30.38) would cost around 320 chocolate bars (costing about 134 pounds)," the journal noted.


Cadbury said it wanted to play its part in the debate about obesity and would make a decision about package labels over the next two weeks.


"At the moment this is something we are looking at purely as Cadbury in the U.K," the spokesperson added.


The Lancet cited figures from Britain's Food Standards Agency (FSA) that showed obesity in 15-year-olds has trebled to 15 percent over the past 10 years.


It also criticized the British Broadcasting Corporation, which is funded by license fees and taxes, for franchising its Tweenies childrens' program characters, popular among pre-school aged children, to fast-food giant McDonald's.


McDonald's, in a statement, said that it fully complied with British advertising and sales promotions standards and also imposed internal company standards that are even more stringent.


"In addition, we have always advocated the benefit of a balanced diet and lifestyle and we provide a variety of products to accommodate different tastes and preferences," the statement said.


Rather than voluntary agreements with manufacturers, The Lancet, which is Britain's leading medical journal, called for legislation to regulate the production of unhealthy food.


"Food needs clear, probably iconic, labeling for its nutritional content -- an icon for junk food should be easy to design," it said.

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Just a little American humor...

Like people have no common sense that sweets should be eaten occasionally--seems like we have to legislate everything for the common good...

The thing is that advertising is a lot more psychologically powerful than advertisers would want us to know. When things are portrayed as colorful and attractive in the media, create a challenge to win something that tickles the child in all of us, then priced cheaply and arranged strategically in a store, it is easy to be the proverbial moth to a flame.

And theres SO MUCH of this sort of thing going on... I mean I could sing the Oscar Mayer wiener song when I was a kid... now kids are singing Squeezed in the Middle about chocolate chip cookie sandwiches with cream filling and screaming for sugar (*cough*) I mean Fruit Rollups, wacky gummy snacks made with "real fruit", and Cheetos and crackers and chips... it's dwarfed all the other healthy stuff in the eyes of our kids, moreover now that we are adults and nobody can tell us to eat our veggies and fruits and proteins and fats, well... it is just too easy to slide down the junk food trail, setting a poor example to the next generation.

I would love to see what Cadbury considers healthy advice to put on their labels. Probably something like, "Eat more chocolate, it contains heart-healthy antioxidents"

bv said "The thing is that advertising is a lot more psychologically powerful than advertisers would want us to know. When things are portrayed as colorful and attractive...."

For example. Ever notice how the CocaCola ads tend to show people being incredibly hyperactive? (No doubt due to all that caffeine and sugar) Well, then we are told that adult hyperactivity is actually bad, and Big Pharma will give us drugs to fix that too.

Argh,

Val

Either that or something along the lines of "Cocoa is a bean. Beans are vegetables. Eat Cadbury chocolate and get one of your daily servings of vegetables in!" :lol: After all, everyone knows that vegetables are healthy for you!
The scary part is that a lot of folks would nod and say, "Gosh..I never thought of it that way...chocolate is actually good for us!" :rolleyes:

I read somewhere once that chocolate does contain some antioxidant nutrients and probably would be good for us if it wasn't loaded with sugar.