8/30/2004 - DIET trends aren't just for adults anymore. A new obsession ofAmerica's food, beverage and restaurant companies is thwarting childhoodobesity. With more nutritious products, healthier menus and new activityprograms, the companies have begun a big push aimed at the youngestgeneration.

Frito-Lay is offering reduced-fat Doritos in school lunch rooms. OscarMayer has added apple sauce and other healthy choices to its Lunchablesmeal-kit line. Kraft has come out with a sugarless Kool-Aid that is beingmarketed in magazines like Diabetic Cooking and Diabetes Forecast.

Among restaurant chains, Wendy's has slipped orange slices into children'smeals, and Denny's has made French fries much harder to find on its menuthan new side dishes of fruits and vegetables.

And, this fall, Coca-Cola is helping finance a new after-school fitnessprogram.''The big idea is to give kids education, motivation and access toways to change,'' said Brock Leach, the chief innovations officer atPepsiCo, which owns Frito-Lay. ''The food business can play a veryconstructive role in that, making these foods available to kids andmarketing them in ways that make a healthier lifestyle more attractive.''

For decades, of course, the industry has been known for serving up sugaryor fat-laden products, promoted with ceaseless advertising. And despiteall the new, healthier options, that will not change. ''If they stop,their competitors are right there and will fill the void,'' said Dr.Walter Willett, chief of the nutrition department at the Harvard School ofPublic Health.

Critics say these companies are taking a new direction only to escape ormitigate possible court verdicts that could blame the food industry forthe fact that about 15 percent of American youth now are plumper than theyshould be, more than double the proportion of 25 years ago. ''There arehordes of lawyers looking at the industry's marketing practices in a waythat's never happened before,'' said Marion Nestle, a nutrition professorat New York University.

Food, drink and restaurant executives are quick to place blame on videogames, television watching and the recent decline of physical educationprograms in schools.

''Blaming industry is not going to get us any closer to a solution,'' saidRichard Martin, a spokesman for the Grocery Manufacturers of America.''The only way to get there is to work collaboratively, not by pointingfingers.''

Even more important, according to nutritionists and child psychologists,is the confounding truth that parents -- whether distracted, oblivious orboth -- are ultimately to blame for what their children eat. ''Parentswere created for that function,'' said Dan Jaffe, executive vice presidentfor government relations at the Association of National Advertisers, anorganization based in Washington whose members include food companies. ''Idon't know of any little child who jumps in the car and drives to asupermarket and buys their own food.''

So the industry is trying to shake up both generations. Subwayrestaurants, for example, have new 30-second commercials, aimed at adults,that highlight the weight-loss success stories of three real children. The$20 million national campaign does not mention Subway products and refersto the chain primarily with shots of the children with Jared Fogle, wholost 250 pounds while eating mostly Subway sandwiches.

But there were obstacles along the way for Subway, which is based inMilford, Conn. Critics inside the company found the background choralmusic too ponderous and reminiscent of political advertising, so theadvertising agency Fallon Worldwide changed to a lighter, moreinspirational tone. At first, the ads mentioned the actual number ofpounds each youngster had shed, but officials of the American HeartAssociation, which was consulting on the project, balked and suggestedthat the spots focus more on the fact that the children felt better.

Then standards executives at two networks refused at first to broadcastthe ads. ''They felt as though Jared represented an extreme weight lossand that we shouldn't teach kids that they needed to have an extreme losslike that,'' said Chris Carroll, senior vice president for marketing atSubway's franchise-marketing group. ''I didn't think we should back off,though, because kids' obesity is a real issue. And we didn't.'' Instead,it added disclaimers that spelled out the complexity of children's weightloss.

Innovative Candy Concepts Inc., based in Atlanta, has gone further,replacing its entire main product line, Too Tarts, with a new brand calledToo Tarts Smart Choice, which contains only fruit juice as sweeteners andup to 60 percent fewer calories than the original. The company's chiefexecutive, Armand Hammer (not related to the oil company executive of thesame name), said he was motivated in part by a twinge of guilt last yearat distributing sugar-laden products to his own grandchildren.

''For us to make that kind of statement, we thought, was responsible andwould be well accepted,'' said Mr. Hammer, whose company is donating 5percent of net earnings from the new line to the American DiabetesAssociation. ''And we were hoping that by doing so, we would make sort ofa mission statement for the industry.''

PepsiCo has also changed focus. Some 56 percent of the growth in its NorthAmerican revenue in the first half of this year came from fare thatPepsiCo defines as healthful, like Quaker Oats cereals, Gatorade sportsdrinks, Aquafina bottled waters and baked and reduced-fat Frito-Laysnacks. The company has started a program called Smart Spot, in whichhealthier products across all its brands carry a green logo.

Yet the way some critics see it, PepsiCo has a lot to change, consideringthe role that soft drinks and high-calorie salty snacks have played inchildhood obesity. And while the practice has declined recently, they alsonote that some Pepsi bottlers still make big cash payments to winexclusive on-campus vending contracts from school districts that may beshort on money.

Mr. Leach said Pepsi had embraced the idea that ''it's in our interest forkids to be able to make sustainable health choices.'' Last year, Pepsiintroduced 30 reduced-calorie products that are sold at schools, like SoBeSynergy, which is 50 percent fruit juice and has fewer calories thanall-juice alternatives. The Quaker Oats division is test-marketing aflavored-milk product called Chillers that is sweetened without sugar andhas vitamins and minerals added. Frito-Lay has reformulated its snack-foodrecipes to eliminate nearly all trans-fats, which contribute to coronaryproblems like blocked arteries. And PepsiCo said it had placed 17,000 newAquafina and Gatorade vending machines in schools last year.

Like Coca-Cola, Kraft, McDonald's and others, PepsiCo is also aiming tomake children more active. Gatorade, for example, is working with theUniversity of North Carolina on ideas that include simple things likepromoting construction of more sidewalks where children can play. AndPepsiCo has committed $2 million a year for three years to an in-schoolprogram beginning this fall called Balance First, whose goal is to have2.5 million students eat 100 fewer calories each day and burn off 100calories more, mainly through walking; several hundred elementary schoolsaround the country have committed to introducing the program throughscience or health classes.

''The idea is to prevent kids from accumulating that excess one or twopounds each year,'' said James O. Hill, a professor at the health sciencescenter of the University of Colorado, who developed Balance First. ''Wecan look at the industry as the enemy,'' he added, ''but we're only goingto change this problem with kids if we actually engage the private sectorin helping.''

STILL, skeptics say all this can be a smokescreen for food, beverage andrestaurant companies.

''Their role first and foremost should be producing and promoting onlyhealthy-as-possible kinds of foods, especially when it comes tochildren,'' said Dr. Willett of Harvard.

Even with the new products, it remains difficult for the industry toresist the profits offered by the status quo. As part of an effort calledKids Smart Eating that it introduced in June, Ruby Tuesday, a restaurantchain based in Maryville, Tenn., took grilled-cheese sandwiches andmacaroni-and-cheese casserole off its new children's menu in favor ofentrees like whole-grain tortillas with turkey and cheese.