Disney joins fight against child obesity
By Joseph Menn
Los Angeles Times
“The Incredibles” Pop-Tarts are out, and Nemo water and Disney Garden apples are in.
Walt Disney Co. said it plans to start lending its characters’ names mainly to healthful foods, cheering health advocates who have faulted the entertainment industry for contributing to childhood obesity.
Disney said it essentially would follow federal guidelines for children’s diets. In its parks, it will replace fries and sodas in kid’s meals with vegetables and juice.
In its licensing deals, which reach more consumers, Disney by 2009 will limit portion sizes and in most cases refuse to tie its brand to foods that get more than 30 percent of their calories from fat, more than 10 percent from saturated fat or more than 10 percent from added sugar. Exceptions will be reduced to 15 percent of Disney-related foods by 2010.
“Sugary things like Lucky Charms and Sugar Frosted Flakes wouldn’t make it,” said James O. Hill, a nationally recognized child nutrition expert who worked with Disney on the new policy for five months. “Cheerios and Rice Krispies would.” The announcement last week follows reports by scientific panels that blasted the use of cartoon characters to sell children food with low nutritional value.
“This is wonderful,” said Ellen Wartella, provost at the University of California, Riverside and a contributor to one of those reports, which was issued in December by the National Academy of Sciences. “The concern about obesity and childhood is a national concern, and it’s putting all our children at risk. Disney should be lauded.”
The plan, more than a year and a half in the making, was announced just months after Disney and McDonald’s Corp. failed to renew a 10-year, $1 billion promotional deal.
Executives on both sides of those talks said nutrition was not the driving factor behind the split. Disney insiders said the fast-food partnership would be difficult to justify now that it is trying to brand fruit, pasta and other items less likely to aggravate health-conscious parents.
The science panels also asked food manufacturers and broadcasters to do more to staunch the flow of sugared products. Kraft Foods, the largest vendor, has stopped advertising some of its wares during children’s television shows.
But commercial broadcasters, including Disney’s ABC network and Toon Disney channel, haven’t stopped carrying ads for junk food. Disney has been incorporating more story lines on good diet and exercise in its shows, said Disney Chief Financial Officer Thomas O. Staggs.
Disney fights childhood obesity
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