Sugary Cereal: Breakfast Candy or Obesity Cure?

Cereal companies should adopt -- and stick to -- sensible food marketing.

Cereal companies have been touting ready-to-eat breakfast cereal as one important solution for the nation's childhood obesity epidemic. At the same time, those companies are aggressively lobbying Congress and the Obama Administration to kill voluntary government guidelines for food marketing to children. The companies fear that such guidelines, even though non-binding, wouldn't endorse the marketing of Apple Jacks, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and other sugary products to young children.

Cereal companies does list eating under the "principles for promoting calorie balance and weight management," and indicate that children who don't eat breakfast are more likely to be overweight. But does that mean that eating for breakfast puts a child on a path to a healthy weight?