Kellogg settles FTC charges that ads for Frosted Mini-Wheats were false

Kellogg Company, the world's leading producer of cereal, settled a complaint by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) about the company’s advertising claims touting a breakfast of Frosted Mini-Wheats as "clinically shown to improve kids' attentiveness by nearly 20%." The federal agency said in a statement released on April 20 that the claims were "false and violated federal law."

The proposed settlement bars what the FTC states are deceptive or misleading cognitive health claims for Kellogg's breakfast foods and snack foods and bars the company from misrepresenting any trials or studies.

The FTC complained as quoted in the April 20 statement that "Kellogg claimed in a national advertising campaign including television, print, and Internet advertising as well as product packaging that a breakfast of Frosted Mini-Wheat cereal is clinically shown to improve children’s attentiveness by nearly 20 percent." The agency said the fact is that only half of the children in the trial who ate the cereal for breakfast showed any improvement in attentiveness and only one in nine children improved by 20 percent or more.

The agency pointed out that trial controls were children who did NOT eat any breakfast. Compared to those who did not eat breakfast, those who ate Frosted Mini-Wheats were under 11% percent better in attentiveness and relatively few were nearly 20 percent more attentive.

Food Research and Action Center, a Washington DC based organization, says in an undated document based on 39 studies that children eating breakfast perform better in cognitive function, attention and memory skills, among others, than those who did not eat breakfast.

"We tell consumers that they should deal with trusted national brands," said Jon Leibowitz, Chairman of the FTC. "So it's especially important that America's leading companies are more 'attentive' to the truthfulness of their ads and don’t exaggerate the results of tests or research. In the future, the Commission will certainly be more attentive to national advertisers."

Bruce Silverglade, legal affair director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a nonprofit health advocacy group based in Washington DC, states in a press release that "the astonishing claims made by Kellogg that its Frosted Mini-Wheats improved children's attentiveness by 20 percent were laughable on their face and never should have surfaced in an advertising campaign by a major food manufacturer."

The CSPI release says "Incidentally, if Kellogg sincerely wanted to improve children’s attentiveness, it would phase out the use of Blue 1, Blue 2, Red 40, and any other synthetic food dyes that show up in some varieties of Mini-Wheats. Those dyes exacerbate some children's hyperactivity and behavioral problems, and have no place in foods aimed squarely at children."

(By David Liu and edited by Heather Kelley)