Captive audience.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Bobbing above a Burger King is an inflatable, 9-foot-tall, mustard-yellow cartoon character who looks like a kitchen sponge with a goofy face, a tiny white shirt, red tie and brown shorts. Most grown-ups wouldn't give it a second thought.

But if there are young children in the car, odds are pretty good that they'll do whatever it takes - beg, whine, squeal - to eat with their pal SpongeBob SquarePants. Countless harried parents will indulge their children's pleadings. That's one of the reasons the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) wants to change the way food is marketed to kids.

Cross-promotional ties between beloved cartoon characters and food products are among the many ways companies attempt to influence kids' food choices. Children are bombarded with food-related advertising, mostly for cereals, fast food and candy. A 2004 study from the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation found that kids are exposed to 40,000 ads a year.

About 58 ads a day come from television, and half of those are for high-calorie or low-nutrition foods that undermine parents' efforts to promote healthy eating. Studies confirm that the ads work; they get kids' attention and affect their food preferences.

The CSPI is urging food manufacturers, broadcasters, movie studios and schools to transform the way they market drinks, snacks and fast food to children. Instead of trying to get kids to eat Blimp-O bars and drink Cherry-Maple Sucro Cola, the center wants companies to voluntarily adopt nutritional guidelines that would emphasize foods low in fat, added sugars and salt.

Ads aimed at children could promote only foods with less than 30 percent of total calories from fat (except nuts and peanut butter), with saturated and trans fats accounting for less than 10 percent. Trans fats, like saturated fats and cholesterol, have been linked to heart disease and are added to processed foods as preservatives.

The guidelines also specify that food marketed to children contain less than 25 percent of calories from added sugars, less than 150 milligrams of sodium per serving, and have package sizes that don't exceed the portions listed on nutrition content labels.

In addition to setting strict nutritional standards, the guidelines call on companies to stop using product placements, cross-promotions, school-based marketing and advertising on children's TV shows, movies, Web sites and video games to promote low-nutrition foods to kids.

With one notable exception, food industry flacks rolled their eyes and dismissed the guidelines as an unworkable overreaction from a fussy "eat your broccoli" outfit. "Can you imagine being on the CSPI diet? No thank you," said Stephanie Childs, spokeswoman for the Grocery Manufacturers of America, which represents major food companies.

Kraft Foods, one of the world's largest food producers, announced that it would stop advertising popular sugary and fatty snacks like Oreo cookies and Kool-Aid to kids younger than 12. The company said that by the end of this year it would phase out all its TV, radio and print ads targeting 6- to 11-year-olds -10 percent of its current ad spending.

Kraft's move is a welcome step in the right direction because it puts pressure on other companies to follow suit, but it's only a small part of what's needed.

The CSPI guidelines emerged because the food industry's self-regulating oversight body, the Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU), has placed more emphasis on preserving the industry's freedom to advertise to children than on the impact of that advertising on children's health.

Meanwhile, rates of obesity have doubled in children and tripled in teens. One-quarter of kids between the ages of 5 and 10 have high blood pressure, elevated blood cholesterol levels or other early warning signs for heart disease.

Type 2 diabetes can no longer be called "adult onset" diabetes because it's occurring more frequently in children.

Last fall, the Institute of Medicine's childhood obesity report called for tougher standards from oversight groups like CARU and recommended that the Department of Health and Human Services convene a meeting to set national marketing standards for food and beverages aimed at children.

The CSPI's proposal deserves more than glib dismissal from an industry whose current practices negatively affect the health of American children.

Widespread improvement in the industry's marketing to children needs to occur soon, or Congress will have to empower the Federal Trade Commission to intervene.