Cartoon Network Adopts Healthier Guidelines

Cartoon Network is building off its "Get Animated" healthy initiative, which gets kids active and excercising, with new licensing guidelines for food and beverage marketers

Cartoon Network is following in the footsteps of some of its competitors by rolling out new guidelines limiting the use of its characters on junk food.

The network is the third to implement such measures. Last week, Nickelodeon and Discovery Communications announced similar guidelines for licensing efforts.

The new guidelines, which take effect Jan. 1, include a cap on total calories per appropriate serving with limits on fat, saturated fat, added trans fat, sodium and sugar. There will also be a requirement encouraging recommended nutrients, such as vitamin A and C, iron, calcium, protein and fiber. They apply to all new product licensing and promotional tie-in deals and to renewals of any existing deals, the network said.

For example, a main meal must contain less than 600 calories, with total fat content less than 35%, whereas a single serving snack should have less than 200 calories with less than 35% fat. An 8-ounce beverage must have less than 200 calories, Cartoon Network said.

“Cartoon Network believes in a fully comprehensive approach to promoting overall child health,” said Stuart Snyder, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Turner’s Animation, Young Adults & Kids Media group, in a statement. “Our strategy is to approach these current health issues on all fronts by carefully guiding our licensed character branding, developing new entertainment programming and interstitials to help teach recommended dietary practices, and promoting multiple off-channel partnerships that will inspire kids to develop a more active lifestyle.”

The one exception to the rules will be for the licensing of “special occasion sweets,” the company said.

Cartoon Network is also working with nutritional experts to develop new programming to integrate messages regarding nutrition and activity to influence and encourage families to adopt balanced and healthy lifestyles. The effort builds off Cartoon Network’s ongoing “Get Animated” outreach programs to reach kids with healthy lifestyle messages via on-air, print, on-line and off-channel programs.