Societal resolve and the health of children.

If the true measure of society’s progress is the attention devoted to the condition of its children, the nationmayneedabetter compass to right its course. Six years ago, the IOM’s Committee on Food Marketing to ChildrenandYouth found, ineffect,when it comes tohealth as arguably the key component of the human condition, 21st-century American culture has notmeasured upwell in tending to its children’s futures.Where do we stand today? Prompted by the need to address the rapid growth in obesity and overweight amongAmerican children during the past 3 decades, at the request of the CDC, the IOM formed an expert Committee to undertake a congressionally mandated study of the influence of food and beverage marketing practices on child health. In its 2006 report, Food Marketing to Children and Youth: Threat or Opportunity, the IOMCommittee released the results of the most comprehensive assessment of the issue, fınding that (1) the evidence was strong for a causal relationship between television advertising and children’s diets; (2) growth in food and beverage products and advertising targeted to children substantially outpaced that for other populations and disproportionately emphasized energydense, low-nutrient products; (3) food marketing was rapidly becoming amuchmore sophisticatedmultimedia activity than simply advertising; and (4) wholesale change would require large-scale, sustained,multifaceted efforts, with industry’s full participation. Explicitly stated in the titleof the IOMreport is thenotion that with the established certainty of marketing’s influence over children’s diets comes not only the threat of adverse influences fromadversepracticesbut thepromiseof salutary influences from salutary practices. The question is, howwell has industry engaged the opportunity to become part of the solution? In their article in this issue of theAmerican Journal of PreventiveMedicine—“Industry Progress toMarket a Healthful Diet to American Children and Adolescents”— Kraak et al. offer some initial answers. Based on a comprehensive survey of the literature produced since the release of the report in 2006, the authors