caregivers should monitor changes in their family’s food, beverage, and physical activity choices and their progress toward healthier lifestyles.

Implementation Actions for Industry

The U.S. Congress, in consultation with industry and other relevant stakeholders, should appropriate adequate funds to support independent and periodic evaluations of industry’s efforts to promote healthier lifestyles.

To accomplish this,

• The FDA should be given the authority to evaluate full serve and quick serve restaurants’ expansion of healthier food, beverage, and meal options; the effectiveness of the restaurant sector in providing nutrition labeling and nutrition information at the point of choice; and the effect of this information on consumers’ purchasing behaviors.

• The CDC should evaluate the effectiveness of corporate-sponsored physical activity programs, energy-balance education programs, and the use of branded physical activity equipment (e.g., physical videogames) on children’s leisure-time preferences and physical activity behaviors.

• The U.S. Congress should designate a responsible agency to conduct the periodic monitoring and evaluation of the self-regulatory guidelines of CARU, which should include an assessment of CARU’s effectiveness, impact, and enforcement capacity.

• The food retail sector, the restaurant sector, and relevant trade associations should collaborate with the USDA and DHHS to provide marketing data on pricing strategies, consumer food purchases, and consumption trends from proprietary retail scanner systems, household scanner panels, household consumption surveys, and marketing research. The collaborative work should examine the quality of the data, consider reducing the cost to make the data more accessible, and establish priorities for applying the information to promote healthful diets.

• Industry should demonstrate corporate responsibility by sharing marketing research findings that may help public health professionals and community-based organizations develop and implement more effective childhood obesity prevention messages, policies, and programs.

Recommendation 4: Government, industry, communities, schools, and families should foster information-sharing activities and disseminate