Stop peddling junk food to children, Commercial Alert tells publishers

[Gary Ruskin]

Commercial Alert				September 22, 2000

Following a report in today's New York Times that some book publishers
are promoting toddler-targeted books that advertise junk food,
Commercial Alert asked American Association of Publishers President Pat
Schroeder to "remind the publishing industry that it exists for the
nurture of children and not the commercial exploitation of them." The
letter follows.

Dear Ms. Schroeder:

	During your career in the U.S. House of Representatives, you built a
reputation as an advocate for children, and you deserved it.  As Chair
of the Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families, you worked hard
for the Family and Medical Leave Act, among many other important causes.

	That work included your efforts to protect children from the
machinations of advertisers and marketers.  For example, in 1992, you
and three House colleagues asked RJR Nabisco to stop their lethal Joe
Camel campaign. 

	You work showed an awareness of the importance of nutrition to child
health.  For example, in 1991, you proposed an amendment to authorize a
federal government-funded study on the "general health and well-being of
adolescents." In your floor speech in support of the Schroeder
Amendment, you said you wanted an investigation of "the health-promoting
and health-threatening behaviors in which adolescents engage" --
including, specifically, "nutrition."

	The wheel has come around in a way that probably causes you great
personal chagrin. As you know, publishers have begun to use children's
books as advertisements for junk food.  These books feature junk foods
as characters and often involve activities that require the parent to
purchase the product. "[S]nack-brand children's books have exploded in
the last two years into a genre all their own," The New York Times
reports, "as Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, and Scholastic have all
jumped into the field. Millions of copies have been sold, with a full
shelf of new titles on the way."  

	The Times article notes that food companies see the books as a splendid
vehicle for marketing junk food to toddlers.  "‘It is a great way to get
the Froot Loops brand equity into a different place, where normally you
don't get exposure — taking it from the cereal aisle and into another
area like learning,' said Meghan Parkhurst, a spokeswoman for
Kellogg..."

	Publishers such as Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, and Scholastic are
promoting junk food to vulnerable and unsuspecting children at a time of
skyrocketing childhood obesity.  About one in every five children now
falls into that category.  Childhood diabetes is rising too. Dr. Robin
S. Goland, co-director of the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center told the
Times in 1998 that "With the numbers we're starting to see, this could
be the beginning of an epidemic." 

	These book publishers are plainly exploiting children for commercial
gain. Miriam Bar-on, the chairwoman of the public education committee of
the American Academy of Pediatrics told the Times, "I think the whole
thing is revolting, to be targeting these little kids with that kind of
marketing."

	No less important, these publishers are degrading the concept of
publishing itself.  If publishers are now hucksters, and books are just
ads, then we aren't just sliding down the slope.  We've already hit
bottom.  

	Which means, of course, that this is a good time for your industry to
pick itself up. Toddlers and children need your help once again.  Please
do everything in your power to urge the publishers towards the high
road.

	Someone has to remind the publishing industry that it exists for the
nurture of children and not the commercial exploitation of them. 
Publishers should be providers of mental and emotional nourishment, not
junk food.

Sincerely,


Gary Ruskin
Director
<-----letter ends here------->

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP:
Please ask American Association of Publishers President Pat Schroeder to
make sure that book publishers stop peddling junk food to children.  Pat
Schroeder's phone is (202) 347-3375, fax is (202) 347-3690 and email is
<pschroeder@publishers.org>.


Following is today's New York Times article on snack food books for
toddlers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/22/business/22TODD.html

Snack Foods Become Stars of Books for Children
By David D. Kikpatrick

As the host of the "Bring Your Own Baby" reading group at the Enchanted
Forest bookstore in Dallas, Susan Minshall meets plenty of parents
anxious to start their toddlers reading — and to make them sit still. So
she recommends the newly published "Kellogg's Froot Loops! Counting Fun
Book," which invites toddlers to insert the sugary cereal in cut-out
holes in its cardboard pages.

"I call this a going-out-to-dinner book — you have your kid sitting in a
highchair and it is something to do," she said. "And it is a great way
to begin getting them started reading because eating is when they will
pay attention."

This fall, parents and teachers can choose from a sudden proliferation
of books starring brand-name candies and snacks like Froot Loops,
Cheerios, M & M's, Pepperidge Farm Goldfish,
Reese's Pieces, Skittles, Hershey's chocolates, Sun-Maid raisins and
Oreo cookies.

Introduced six years ago by a Massachusetts nursery school teacher,
snack-brand children's books have exploded in the last two years into a
genre all their own as Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, and Scholastic
have all jumped into the field. Millions of copies have been sold, with
a full shelf of new titles on the way. Random House planned its first
entry this year — a book based on Taco Bell's fast food and Chihuahua
mascot — until Taco Bell pulled the dog from its commercials.

The publishers and authors pay a licensing fee to the food companies,
who see a novel opportunity to market to toddlers. "It is a great way to
get the Froot Loops brand equity into a different place, where normally
you don't get exposure — taking it from the cereal aisle and into
another area like learning," said Meghan Parkhurst, a spokeswoman for
Kellogg, adding that the company also provides Froot Loops book covers
to schools.

But not everyone is pleased to see brand-name snacks invading the world
of books. Publishers have based children's books on characters from
movies and television for years, but have only recently turned to
brand-name foods known mainly from commercials. Some parents, educators
and pediatricians object that the books will engrave snack- food brands
in toddlers impressionable minds, hook them on junk food, and lead to
eating problems later in life. "It's offensive. I wouldn't let my kid
anywhere near books like that," said Marit Larson of Manhattan, mother
of a 2-year-old son.

The books have met some resistance from specialty children's bookstores.
Some, including Books of Wonder and the Bank Street children's bookstore
in New York, have refused to stock many of the titles. "I think it is
such an abuse — manipulating your audience when they don't have the
ability in any way to assess," said Ann-Marie Mott, lower school
coordinator at the Bank Street School for Children.

Miriam Bar-on, the chairwoman of the public education committee of the
American Academy of Pediatrics and a professor of pediatrics at Loyola
University in Chicago, said, "I think the whole thing is revolting, to
be targeting these little kids with that kind of marketing."

In addition to building positive associations with foods of little
nutritional value that may damage children's teeth, she said, the books
encourage parents to reward their children with treats, which creates a
psychologically fraught relationship with food. "You want to use food
for nutrition — you don't want food to seem more powerful than it is,"
she said. She also warned that toddlers could choke on small candies
like M & M's. 

But plenty of parents and teachers are embracing the new genre. Several
titles have sold hundreds of thousands of copies in the last year alone.
The best-selling food book, "The Cheerios Play Book," sold more than 1.2
million copies in the last two years. "We love them," said Judy Kelley,
a kindergarten teacher at the Lilja school in Natick, Mass. "You hate to
always use food, but it is such a hit with the kids because they can
count them and then it is so rewarding for them to eat them."

Kelly Eshback, head of the parent- teacher organization at the Florence
Rideout Elemenatry School in Wilton, N.H., said the books turned snack
and cereal advertisements to a worthy purpose. "Any book that they
recognize for whatever reason and read and enjoy is a good thing," she
added. "I guess product names are a way of life for us now."

The boom in brand-name-snack books began with Barbara Barbieri McGrath,
the nursery school teacher in Wellesley, Mass., who discovered in 1982
that her students' interest perked up at brand names they recognized
from advertisements. She composed a little poem about M & M's to teach
children to count. "I just made M & M's with construction paper because
you can't feed chocolate to 4- and 5-year-olds, then I laminated them so
the kids thought they were really special," she said.

She and her husband, a carpenter, set out to turn the idea into a book,
but their initial efforts foundered. No one had heard of publishing
children's books so similar to advertising. Even after her husband
signed a deal with Mars to use its M & M's trademark, 35 publishers
turned them down, she said. Finally, in 1992, a friend referred her to
nearby Charlesbridge Publishing.

In 1994, Charlesbridge published the "The M & M Brand Counting Book" in
hardcover and paperback, and it quickly became the house's best-selling
title. More than one million copies have been sold, along with a
small-size board book for toddlers and special editions for Halloween
and Christmas, with Valentine's Day and Easter editions on the way. All
help teach hand-eye coordination and simple concepts like counting and
colors by asking children to count the candies or place them on the
pages of the books. The holiday books include cutout spaces for the
candies.

After the success of the first M & M's books, Mrs. McGrath quit her
teaching job to make a career out of writing snack-brand children's
books for a variety of publishers, including eight M & M's editions;
five Cheerios editions, including Spanish-language versions; a Kellogg's
Froot Loops book; three Pepperidge Farm Goldfish books; Skittles books
in hardcover and paperback; a Hershey Kisses board book; and a Necco
Sweethearts book. The pages of the board books are covered in plastic,
so smudged chocolate or grease wipes away. 

Trademark owners are always allowed to approve the books' contents
before publication, Mrs. McGrath said. Hardcover books sell for about
$10, and paperbacks for about $5. She says that she usually pays half
her royalty rate — typically 15 percent of the cover price on hardcover
books and 7 percent on paperbacks — to the brand's owner, after paying
the company an upfront advance, too.

"People always say, `How much are they paying you to advertise for
them?' but that's not how it works," she said. In fact, she often feels
the cereal and candy makers fail to appreciate the marketing her books
provide. "I think the fees should come down, because these books take
the brands to a place they ordinarily can't get to. They can't usually
get to the books parents read their kids and they can't get to advertise
in schools. You can't come in and blast the kids with advertising in
those places, and these books are actually getting the exact target age
group."

After the success of Mrs. McGrath's M & M's book, several other authors
started writing similar books of their own, and Simon & Schuster's
children's division decided to get into the act. "A big part of our
business is brand-oriented in terms of media tie-ins like `Rugrats' or
`Blue's Clues,' so we thought, what other brands are important that we
could translate into wholesome books for kids?" said Robin Corey,
publisher of Simon & Schuster's novelties and tie-ins division. "We
knocked out dozens of brands because we felt they might not be
parent-endorsed — overly sweet candies or cereals, or cookies that
weren't wholesome all-American enough." The company decided to start
with Cheerios.

Simon & Schuster's Cheerios book, designed by the publisher's art
director, Lee Wade, pioneered the addition of cutouts for inserting
pieces of cereal, and quickly became a runaway best seller. More than
1.2 million copies are in print. It far outsold Mrs. McGrath's own
Cheerios book, published by Scholastic at the same time in the fall of
1998. 

General Mills, which licenses the Cheerios name for both editions,
declined to tell Scholastic about Simon & Schuster's book, said Bernette
Ford, editorial director of Scholastic's Cartwheel Books imprint.

Since the success of the Cheerios book, food companies started to take
notice of the untapped potential in children's books. Candy, cookie,
cereal, and snack makers deluged publishers with proposals for books
based on their products. "I broke a crown on a piece of sticky candy
that came with one proposal," Ms. Corey said. "Our editorial staff is
about 50 pounds heavier."

Publishers are scrambling to find products that fit the bill. Simon &
Schuster followed up its Cheerios success with books on Sun-Maid
raisins. Charlesbridge moved from M & M's to Skittles. Scholastic began
a series based on Hershey's Kisses and other candies. HarperCollins
jumped into the field with Pepperidge Farm Goldfish, Kellogg's Froot
Loops, and, soon, Necco Sweetheart candies. Publishers also began
expanding upward from toddlers into books for children in elementary
school, too, including "Reese's Pieces: Count by Fives," the "Hershey's
Milk Chocolate Bar Fractions Book," and "Skittles Math Riddles." 

Ms. Corey said Simon & Schuster still limited itself to "wholesome"
foods, like Oreos, which are featured in "The Oreo Cookie Counting Book"
the company is publishing this fall. It teaches children to count down
from 10 cookies to `'one little Oreo . . . too tasty to resist."

Most publishers are blasι about introducing books that look like
advertisements into the highchair and the classroom. "The whole issue of
the commercialization of children's books, that came a lot of years
earlier," said Susan Katz, publisher of HarperCollins children's
division. 

But some publishers are not proud of it. "Its not that these books
resemble advertising — they are advertising. They are P.R. for the food
manufacturer and as such they are vaguely reprehensible," said Kate
Klimo, publisher of Random House's children's books division, which
recently canceled the series of books based on Taco Bell's
Chihuahua."Now just watch me get a deal with one of them," she added
with a laugh.

<------article ends here------>

Commercial Alert opposes corporate exploitation of children and the
excesses of commercialism, advertising and marketing.  Commercial
Alert's web site is at <http://www.essential.org/alert/>.

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Gary Ruskin | Commercial Alert 
1611 Connecticut Ave. NW Suite #3A | Washington, DC 20009
Phone: (202) 296-2787 | Fax (202) 833-2406
http://www.essential.org/alert/ | mailto:gary@essential.org
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