Nutella Lawsuit Nonsense?

I'm sure you've all heard about the lawsuit in California of a woman who sued Ferrero USA for creating advertisements for Nutella that made the product seem like a healthy choice to feed kids, when in actuality it is no better nutritionally then melting down a Snickers bar and spreading it on a piece of toast. And yeah, I totally agree that the advertising is definitely misleading. The commercials are always bright and cheery with a mom giving her kids a large serving of Nutella spread on a piece of toast for breakfast, with her saying something such as, "And I feel good knowing that I am making a good choice by giving my kids Nutella." Really, the only good thing about it is that it tastes good (really good).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThIrw_LpuRA

I've read stories about the lawsuit and there is a lot of uproar since she won the lawsuit and the company shelled out $3.05 million (most of it to be divided amongst Nutella customers who can get a $4 refund). What people are saying is that this is a silly lawsuit because if she would have only stopped and read the Nutrition Facts label then she would have seen that a serving of the product contains 200 calories, 11grams of fat and 21grams of sugar, and she would have known that this was not a healthy breakfast choice for her daughter. What people don't realize is just how strong advertisements can be to the population and that we will buy products based on our memories of seeing the product on TV or a website ad. There is SO MUCH research that says that we make a lot of our purchasing choices based on what we see or hear in the media, whether it be a good or bad choice.

Case and point. A woman came into the office the other day and I sat down and talked to her about her weight loss journey. She's a new client of Rachelle's and was really struggling that week to keep her weight off, so I took a look over her food journal (all new clients write down everything that eat for the first 6 weeks of their program) to see how her eating was. After a quick glance I saw the word "Nutella" posted all over her weekly journal. I asked her about it and if she had been approved by Rachelle to eat the product, which of course she said no. She said that she bought it on a whim at Monday because she figured it was a good snacking choice to put on her rice cakes to up her protein. When I told her about the recent lawsuit against the company and that it was incredibly high in fat and sugar, she was shocked. Her response was, "I thought it was the same thing as peanut butter but with hazelnuts."

See, people don't know that this isn't a good choice for a healthy lifestyle. She saw the commercials, took it for granted that what she saw was a company promoting their healthy food by showing happy healthy active kids eating Nutella and their slim and beautiful mothers looking contently onward. Nope.

Now we just need moms to look at the Nutrition Facts labels of all those "whole grains cereals" that they are buying for their kids. Yeah they may have bumped up the fibre by a gram or two, but the content of the cereals are still packed to the max with lots of sugar. Oh the lawsuits to come in the near future!