Food Marketing Investigation

With happymeal.com receiving hundreds of thousands of visitors monthly, in addition to smart-phone applications, advertisements, and Facebook all featuring food advertising, the US government is looking into what effects food marketing has on the nation’s children. After the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity named the marketing of junk food as a reason for the rise in juvenile obesity, the Federal Trade Commission has decided to investigate, and plans to release its findings this summer. Kathryn Montgomery, a communications professor at American University, tells TreeHugger, “Food marketing is really now woven into the very fabric of young people’s daily experiences and their social relationship.”