Just As I Thought

Cheesy promises from Kraft

This week, Kraft (a subsidiary of RJ Reynolds Tobacco, by the way) announced that it was concerned about the rise of obesity and would take steps to fight it:

The commitments Kraft is making, which are global in scope and supplement a variety of actions the company is already taking, will focus in four key areas: product nutrition, marketing practices, consumer information and public advocacy and dialogue. Some are fully developed and nearing implementation, while other steps will require further development, including continued input from experts and interest groups outside the company.

That reads like double-speak, but some of the steps they want to take are:

  • The elimination of all in-school marketing
  • Locally appropriate criteria to use with the vending industry in different regions of the world to determine the selection of Kraft products to be sold through in-school vending machines
  • Guidelines for all advertising and marketing practices, including advertising and marketing to children, to encourage appropriate eating behaviors and active lifestyles
  • Nutrition labeling in all markets worldwide, including markets where labeling is not required

Now, maybe it’s just me, but don’t all these steps sound like the steps that the RJ Reynolds Company is taking to keep children from smoking?
Now, I’m not a left wing activist on this issue – I think that people should be intelligent enough to know that eating an entire package of Oreos is probably not the wisest thing you could do. Why should Kraft be responsible for making you eat right? But it must be said that a lot of companies are deceptive in labelling – for instance, I noticed a bottle of Coke this weekend was labeled as having 100 calories per serving. Most people, without reading too carefully, would assume that meant per bottle. Nope! Coca-Cola defines a serving as 8 OUNCES. Do you have any 8 ounce glasses in your house? A standard glass is 12 ounces or more. That bottle contains 16 ounces, or 200 calories. Sneaky.
While Kraft is making these pledges, they’re airing a commercial for a new, larger serving size of “Easy Mac” Macaroni and Cheese – just for growing teens.

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  • In a speech to the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Richard H. Carmona, the surgeon general, urged pediatricians to do more to combat childhood obesity, noting that many overweight children became overweight adults. “We must teach our children to enjoy healthy foods in healthy portions,” he said. Over weight people are more likely to have hypertension, arthritis, stroke, high blood cholesterol levels, diabetes and some kinds of cancer.

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