News release: “The Federal Trade Commission testified today before the U.S. House of Representatives on the agency’s efforts to help address childhood obesity through its participation in the Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children. The Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, David C. Vladeck, delivered the testimony on behalf of the FTC at a joint hearing held by the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health and Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade. The testimony explains that the Interagency Working Group was convened in 2009 in response to a bipartisan effort led by Senator Tom Harkin and former Senator Sam Brownback. Congress charged the Working Group’s members – the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the FTC, the Food and Drug Administration, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture – with developing nutrition standards for foods marketed to children and defining the scope of marketing to which those standards would apply. In response to this charge, the Working Group has been developing recommendations to Congress for voluntary principles to guide industry self-regulation. As the member agency with marketing expertise, the FTC’s role has been to develop workable parameters to define children’s marketing.”