National Geographic Pushes Junk Food to Kids, Says CSPI

[Sequoia]

WASHINGTON - July 19 - The National Geographic Society’s once ad-free magazine for kids is now packed with ads for fast food, candy, sugary cereals, snack cakes, and other products, according to the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). CSPI today urged the Society to reject ads for low-nutrition, high-calorie foods which CSPI says put the magazine’s young readers at greater risk for obesity, tooth decay, and other diet-related diseases.

The magazine, National Geographic Kids (NGK), also runs very few articles about nutrition or healthy eating and shamelessly blends food advertising into its editorial content, according to a review CSPI conducted of 17 recent issues. Those issues had 51 junk-food ads, including ads for Twinkies, M&Ms, Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, Hostess Cup Cakes, and Xtreme Jell-O Pudding Sticks. In one recent issue, the magazine printed a wrap-around cover, similar to the actual cover, promoting Arby’s “Adventure Meal” that contains National Geographic Kids materials. Each meal is “loaded with learning,” according to the ad copy, and “trusted by moms.” One of the meals depicted is fried chicken fingers with French fries, which provides 590 calories and more than half-a-day’s worth of fat and sodium.

“At a time when obesity, diabetes, and other nutrition-related health crises plague our nation and especially our youth, it is unconscionable that the National Geographic Society, with its esteemed reputation and long standing educational mission for both adults and children, has chosen to cram National Geographic Kids with ads for sugary cereals, candy, and snack foods,” wrote CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson and CSPI legal consultant Ellen J. Fried to John M. Fahey, Jr., president and CEO of National Geographic. CSPI also told the Society that its food ads run afoul of the guidelines set by the Children’s Advertising Review Unit of the National Advertising Review Council—the self-regulatory body of the advertising industry.

Parents also seem up in arms over National Geographic Kids’ advertising, according to comments posted on Amazon.com. There, subscribers called NGK a “terrible misuse of the prestige of National Geographic,” “shamefully rife with advertising,” and “the worst kids’ magazine you will ever see.”

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http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/0719-04.htm

We canceled our subscription for these very reasons 2 years ago.

[NuckinFutz]

1. My kids like Muse better anyway.n/t