WHERE'S THE FRUIT?

Widespread Deceptive Packaging Found in Children's Foods

On January 26, 2007, Strategic Alliance will release Where’s the Fruit?: Fruit Content of the Most Highly-Advertised Children’s Food and Beverages. Where’s the Fruit?, conducted by staff from Prevention Institute, documents that despite advertising and packaging that boldly suggest the presence of fruit, over half (51 percent) of these children’s food products contain no fruit at all!

In the face of a growing chronic disease epidemic, parents struggling to make healthier purchasing decisions face a plethora of misleading advertising and packaging claims. To support healthy eating habits, food manufacturers need to stop marketing children’s food products as something that they are not and begin providing more nutritious food options.

“This misleading marketing is feeding children’s health crises, such as diabetes and other chronic diseases. Parents are in a rush and when they are drawn to products for their children that are falsely portrayed as healthier, it’s deceptive and wrong,” said Larry Cohen, Executive Director of Prevention Institute, in a recent radio interview.  (Listen to the full interview)

Strategic Alliance has prepared “Setting the Bar: Actions to Improve Food and Beverage Offerings,” to provide the food and beverage industry with specific recommendations to improve their product offerings and marketing.

Please visit the Strategic Alliance website to access all relevant documents, including:  

• The complete Where’s the Fruit? study
• Setting the Bar: Recommendations for Food and Beverage Industry Action
• Press materials, including a press release and a press kit with relevant background material and fact sheets

Prevention Institute is the staffing arm for Strategic Alliance, a coalition of nutrition and physical activity advocates across California.  We believe that poor physical activity and eating habits are the result of living in an environment that does not support making healthier choices. For more tools and information on how to change the nutrition and physical activity environments in your communities, schools or workplaces, please visit the Strategic Alliance homepage.

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