Remember when the Reagan administration said ketchup was a vegetable? Makers of not-so-healthful foods such as Froot Loops and McDonald’s Happy Meals seem to be following suit when they self-identify their products as “healthy choices,” thus enabling them to advertise these products to children.

The federal government did launch an effort to develop more stringent standards for companies advertising to children, but that move has fallen to the wayside in the face of (junk food) industry opposition.

The New York Times:

Lucky Charms. Froot Loops. Cocoa Pebbles. A ConAgra frozen dinner with corn dog and fries. McDonald’s Happy Meals.

These foods might make a nutritionist cringe, but all of them have been identified by food companies as healthy choices they can advertise to children under a three-year-old initiative by the food industry to fight childhood obesity.

Now a hard-nosed effort by the federal government to forge tougher advertising standards that favor more healthful products has become stalled amid industry opposition and deep divisions among regulators.

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