Maybe the authors didn't think it was important. Or maybe they forgot, but for whatever reason, F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies Are Failing in America [1] doesn't have much to say about junk food ads on TV.

The study, just released by the Trust for America's Health [2], is all over the news with its mediagenic ranking of states with the highest obesity levels (Mississippi wins the Plumpness Prize; 30.6 percent of its residents qualify as obese).

The 120 page survey faults the United States for lacking a national plan to combat the epidemic of overweightness and obesity that has swept the country over the past two decades.

"Individuals are often told to take personal responsibility and lose weight . . . " F as in Fat observes. "More than $35 billion is spent annually on weight loss-related products and services. Clearly, the strategy of focusing on personal responsibility alone is failing."

But the report fails to acknowledge an obvious point: every day television, newspaper and Internet advertising urges millions of Americans to gain weight, to consume cheeseburgers, candy, potato chips, fatty cereals, and megasodas like the McDonalds Hugo [3]—a 42 oz, 410 calorie cannister of sugar, water, and food coloring the size of a small fire extinguisher.

It's not that F as in Fat doesn't know that this is a problem. One of its five recommendations for government action is for the Federal government to "develop guidelines regarding the advertising and marketing to children and youth by convening a national conference."

The survey mentions that the Federal Trade Commission held a big meeting in July to work with industry on the issue, and that some companies have developed voluntary policies. But the "federal government is not providing direct leadership over the effort and does not have a plan for evaluating the content of the ads or holding industry accountable," it concludes.

True that, but F as in Fat makes little effort to explore why this might be.

Surprisingly, the study does not mention once the efforts of the Federal Communications Commission to address the obesity crisis. Even the more conservative members of the FCC acknowledge the relationship between TV advertising and child obesity. At a Children Now conference in November of 2006, FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate pointed out [3] that toddlers don't understand until they are seven or eight that the claims of food advertisers are not facts, but efforts to get them to want products.

". . . this cognitive ability combined with the prevalence of unhealthy foods and a more sedentary lifestyle have created a perfect storm that has made childhood obesity a nationwide problem," Tate continued.

But when the FCC issued an Order in 2004 creating some solid rules that limit junk food advertising on digital television, industry fought back, some threatening lawsuits, and some actually suing the FCC.

Finally the Commission's Gloria Tristani [3] got some key players together, from the American Academy of Pediatrics to Disney, and they worked out a set of consensus guidelines [3] on product placement, host selling, and links to Web sites on children's digital TV.

It took years to get the agreement in place. The rules are better than nothing, of course, but they're obviously weaker than what the FCC intended in its 2004 Order.

And, in case you haven't noticed, they aren't stemming the epidemic of childhood obesity.

Since then the Commission has limited itself to participation in a Task Force on Media and Childhood Obesity, and to occasionally going apoplectic over some company's announcement that they're going to voluntarily mend their advertising ways.

And so if the F as in Fat crowd thinks that setting up another conference is going to lead to anything substantial, it's because they haven't paid attention to the experience of the FCC over the last three years.

Tell you what we'd recommend over here at LLFCC, boy howdy. We'd get members of Congress talking about bringing back the Fairness Doctrine for junk food ads, just like the FCC briefly did for cigarette advertising in the 1960s. Every Hugo spot broadcast on TV would permit a public interest group to air a counter ad, warning about the links between obesity and megasodas.

And if the industry can't handle that, then just ban junk food advertising on TV, we say, the way Congress banned cigarette spots in the early 1970s.

Those proposals ought to get the corporate suits jumping—good exercise, actually; might trim more than a few waistlines.

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