Childhood obesity in the U.S. is at its highest level. About one in five American children and adolescents—that’s 14.7 million youngsters aged 2 to 19—are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, up from about five percent in the early 1970s. Why?

Health experts point to a lack of exercise and an abundance of calorie-dense, sugary foods in the American diet. Critics blame food and beverage companies for influencing what children eat by aggressively marketing sugary cereals, snacks, beverages, and candy.

A 2025 study by researchers at the University of Connecticut found that young children are frequently exposed to promotions for candy, sugary drinks, fast food, and salty snacks while watching videos on YouTube.

The researchers report that during just 30 minutes of viewing, 75 percent of six- to eight-year olds and 36 percent of three- to five-year olds saw an average of seven marketing messages for “unhealthy food and beverages.”

More than half of the ads were from companies that participate in the food industry’s voluntary Children’s Food & Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI) and pledge not to advertise products to children or to advertise only those that meet CFBAI’s nutrition standards that include strict limits on calories, saturated fat, sodium, and added sugars.

“Despite these companies’ pledges to only advertise healthier choices to children, child-influencers frequently promoted their brands, including candy, sugary drinks and sweet and salty snacks,” said Jennifer Harris, senior research advisor at the Rudd Center.

For our Consumerpedia podcast, Checkbook interviewed Michael Jacobsen and Jeffrey Chester, two long-time consumer advocates, about the marketing tricks food companies use to sell sugary products to children and why federal regulators aren’t doing anything about it. This article is based on that conversation.

Michael Jacobson has worked to improve the quality and safety of the food we eat for more than 50 years. In 1971, he founded the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). He is credited with coining the term “junk food.” Jacobson’s latest project is the National Food Museum, a website that provides information about food.

Jeff Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a nonprofit that advocates for digital privacy and consumer protection in the online world. A former investigative reporter, Chester helped lead the fight against consolidation and commercialization of the U.S. media system for decades.

Here are highlights from our conversation, edited for length and clarity.     

Herb: Michael, why is the marketing of sugary products to kids so important to you?

Michael Jacobson: That’s where our eating habits start. Eating too much sugar and eating too much salt contribute to some of the most widespread health problems—obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke—terrible health problems that are causing half a million deaths every year in the U.S. So, we’ve got to do something about that. 

We and others have tried over the decades, and frankly, we haven’t had much success. The food industry, the advertising industry, and broadcasters have fought off every effort to control junk-food marketing, especially to kids.
Herb: I think every parent knows that candy is mostly sugar in one form or another. But what about the sweetened cereals they buy for their kids?

Jacobson: The food industry has targeted kids for over a hundred years, and its efforts have gotten more and more sophisticated. In the 1950s and 60s, the focus was really television advertising. In the early 1970s, we and others became concerned that much of the advertising on Saturday morning cartoon shows was for candy, sugary cereals, and similar products. So, in 1977, CSPI and Action for Children’s Television petitioned the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to address this issue. And it tried.

Remarkably, in 1978, the FTC proposed banning all advertising to young children. The food industry, broadcasters, and the advertising industry were scared to death that they would lose this major marketing. So, they lobbied Congress, and in 1980, it passed a law that prohibited the FTC from taking any action to issue rules to protect kids from advertisers, food, or others. And that prohibition has been in place for 46 years. It’s just astonishing.

I went to the grocery store a few weeks ago and found that some breakfast cereals aimed at kids still have 50 percent sugar. One is even 55 percent sugar. It’s just crazy. 

Herb: So, Congress told a federal regulatory agency that it couldn’t regulate the industry that’s marketing these sugary products to our kids.

Jacobson: That’s right. So, advertising has continued to assault kids, not just on television, but in product placement in movies, and on packages. 

If you look at food packages, usually junk food packages, you’ll see cartoon characters speaking directly to kids. With the advent of the internet and digital marketing, the problem has grown much worse. Companies have all kinds of new ways to advertise to kids and personalize their ads. 

They seduce our children. The obesity rates have skyrocketed since 1980, when Congress banned the FTC from taking any action. If we want to make Americans healthy again, we really must do something about this.

Herb: When I was a kid, we saw TV commercials for all sorts of sugary cereals: Lucky Charms, Froot Loops, Captain Crunch, Honey Smacks, and Frosted Flakes. They all had fun characters, like Tony the Tiger and Toucan Sam, that we could identify with. Are cereal companies still doing this?

Jacobson: Absolutely. And some of your favorites from the 1950s are still around. Kids can identify with them. Their voices are amusing. With Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., expressing concern about Americans’ health, what a golden opportunity to act, but I haven’t seen any interest from Kennedy, the White House, or the Make America Health Again (MAHA) leaders in limiting junk food advertising to kids. 

They know that these are junk foods; they’ve said it. They’ve encouraged people to eat healthier, unprocessed foods. But when you think of all the millions and millions of dollars that are invested in persuading young children to look for brand names, look for these cartoon characters, it’s a tough battle. 

On the one hand, you have psychologists, marketing experts, and food technologists who are all targeting 2-year-old kids. The industry says parents buy their products, not young kids, but what parent can put up with the nag factor? Parents are human; let’s help them.

Herb: The “Selling for Candy to Kids” exhibit on the National Food Museum website has a section about targeted marketing. It says companies build brand loyalty for their fast food, sugary drinks, candy, and snacks with the Black and Latino communities through “cultural cues, language, and music.” What are the health consequences of this targeted marketing?

Jacobson: The foods that are marketed to kids are almost entirely ultra-processed and quickly digested. They’re not filling. They don’t feed the right bacteria in our guts. Obesity results from eating these rapidly digested foods. And then, for whatever evolutionary reason, Latinos and African Americans are more susceptible to obesity and its consequences, like diabetes, than Caucasians. Also, tooth decay is still a problem, more in minority communities than elsewhere.  

The industry knows this, yet they target minority communities with more ads. They feature African American or Latino athletes and movie stars, and that’s going to entice kids. Parents need to protect their kids from this kind of marketing and support local and national laws that would make their job easier.

Herb: Do other countries have more regulations about what can be advertised to children?

Jacobson: Many countries have acted. The United Kingdom has barred all marketing of junk foods to kids. Chile has a system for evaluating the nutritional quality of foods. If a food item has too much salt, sugar, saturated fat (the bad stuff), or calories, a warning label is required, and the company cannot use cartoon characters to market that product. This has led to lower sales of those foods, and companies have reduced sugar or salt so their products won’t carry that warning label. 

The U.K. has a soda tax: The more sugar a beverage has, the higher the tax. That has been a powerful incentive to lower the sugar content of drinks and provide non-caloric alternatives. 

So, other countries have been much more aggressive, and it’s sad to see that Congress continues to prevent the FTC from protecting our kids.

Herb: These days, digital technology enables food companies to personalize their messages to children on their phones and via social media, making it easy to circumvent parental control. It makes Saturday-morning TV commercials seem tame by comparison.

Jeff Chester: Everyone who uses the internet is surveilled 24/7 by Google, Meta, Instagram, and TikTok, and advertisers and marketers have access to all that information. The food and beverage industry has been at the forefront of harnessing the latest technologies to target young people and everyone else for decades now. 

We’re entering a critical new phase that poses even greater public health risks to young people, because food and beverage companies like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Mondelez [makers of Sour Patch Kids, Cliff Kids power bars, Chips Ahoy! and Oreo cookies] have fully embraced Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). They’re unleashing a powerful autonomous artificial intelligence marketing system that will target people with more intrusive, highly sophisticated, and ubiquitous advertising, enabling real-time sales.

Herb: For those who have heard the term targeted marketing, could you explain what that means for our kids?

Chester: Companies collect information about us in multiple ways. When you think about Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Mondelez, or Kellogg’s, don’t think of them as food companies; they’re big data companies that gather and analyze huge amounts of information about us. They work with data brokers, online platforms, and grocery stores (because we often use loyalty cards to buy products).

They use all this data to target us with very powerful advertising that works on our unconscious minds. GenAI uses all that market research to engage us in very profound, very emotional, and stealthy ways, even more efficiently.

Herb: Digital technology makes it easy to mix commercial messages with programming, which by any definition is deceptive when it’s in children’s programs. 

Chester: Advertising and content are truly integrated. They’ve blurred the distinction. For example, product placement. We’re about to see a wave of new tools that let advertisers like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s insert their products into the content people see within the program. You might see a Coke bottle on a table, while your neighbor sees something else. 

The online world is fully commercialized, and it’s about to become even more so. Advertisers, especially junk food makers, have embraced GenAI. That’s going to push the limits of what is available to convince us, persuade us, and get us to buy and consume.

Herb: And then there are kid influencers who play a big role in how companies are trying to reach children. How do they fit into all this?

Chester: Using GenAI, brands can create virtual influencers, fake people, who are honed to respond to an individual’s interests and tastes. That virtual influencer, which will appear kind of humanlike, will personalize the message and try to bond with the potential customer to get them to buy the product.

Herb: Checkbook contacted the American Brands Association, which represents the major U.S. cereal makers, to see what they thought about all this. They declined to comment. 

Industry groups frequently argue that education and consumer choice are preferable to advertising restrictions. When asked about cartoon characters used to sell sugary products, manufacturers insist they’re pitching their products to parents, not children.

Chester: The food and beverage industry says it has self-regulatory rules in the U.S. that prohibit targeting kids 12 and younger online. But they’re being disingenuous, because they make sure the product is everywhere, so younger kids will see it, their older brothers, sisters, and friends will see it, and their parents will see it.

Their moms and dads will be targeted when they go into the store, because the brands know there’s a kid in the household who likes this kind of food. They have so many powerful tools, and they’re about to get even more powerful. 

None of this is transparent. None of this is accountable. No one has any privacy. They’re highly manipulative, and that’s why we need to expose all this. Frankly, the U.S. public health field has failed, and the consumer movement isn’t taking on this system either, even though it’s right in front of us. 

I don’t think parents can do very much. We need legislation on privacy and GenAI, but unfortunately, too many politicians from both parties—especially the Trump administration—don’t want to regulate AI. We should at least regulate GenAI. 

Herb: I don’t see Congress doing anything about this soon. What about working with state lawmakers?

Chester: Several states have privacy legislation or are considering it, exploring the ways companies unfairly target young people with advertising and marketing that can harm their health.

Jacobson: Parents can certainly try to work at the state and local level to pass laws and get governors and mayors to use their bully pulpit to protect kids. But it’s tough to pass laws that will really protect kids, so I go back to some basic things parents can do, like limiting smartphone access and setting a good example. We should encourage our kids to do more positive things like reading, getting involved with hobbies, and sports. And how about teaching your kids how to cook? It’s a wonderful activity that will empower them for the rest of their lives.