CSPI Takes Aim At DreamWorks Over Marketing

WASHINGTONThe Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is taking DreamWorks Animation to task for allowing characters from its Madagascar 3: Europes Most Wanted movie to appear on packages of Lance Sandwich Crackers and Nekot Cookies.

According to CSPI, the products exceed recommendations for the amounts of saturated fat or sodium appropriate in snacks marketed to children, according to draft guidelines from the Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children, a federal taskforce composed of representatives from the FTC, CDC, FDA and USDA.

On July 18, CSPI sent a letter to DreamWorks CEO and Director Jeffrey Katzenberg urging the studio to set nutrition standards for the foods for which it licenses its characters, much in the way Katzenbergs former employer, Disney, did last month. (Click here to read more about how Disney revamped its standards for food advertising to kids.) CSPI also urged DreamWorks Animation to join the Council of Better Business Bureaus self-regulatory program, the Childrens Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative.

Parents are faced with an enormous amount of advertising thats intended to change their childrens dietary preferences," said CSPI director of nutrition policy Margo Wootan. When a young child sees the Madagascar penguins on a package of junky crackers, they feel a powerful emotional connectionwhich is why companies do it in the first place. Entertainment companies like DreamWorks have a responsibility to wield that power in a way that doesnt undermine kids health."