There appears to be an increasing and disturbing trend in formula 
advertising towards moving from ads in parenting magazines to placing 
formula ads in mainstream magazines and websites. Mead Johnson is 
running a new ad "Can formula support the way your baby develops?" on 
Celebrity-babies.com, the leading website for latest news on 
celebrities and their babies, with 1 million pageviews per day, and a 
huge readership of expecting mothers. This ad rotates with other ads so 
it is not always on each page all the time, but periodically appears on 
the various pages of the website. Celebrity-babies.com is owned by 
PEOPLE magazine, which has also started running full-page formula ads, 
especially in high-selling issues featuring the latest celebrity 
babies. Formula ads in PEOPLE magazine debuted with Abbott Nutritionals 
ad with Ty Pennington, a centerfold near-cardboard insert. With a 
tremendously high circulation and as a popular public magazine, 
PEOPLE's decision to run formula ads is extremely damaging to 
breastfeeding. Now many of us may not run to these websites and 
magazines ourselves, but millions of pregnant and new mothers certainly 
do. I have written to both Celebrity-babies.com and PEOPLE magazine 
expressing disappointment and concern about these ads. Formula company 
ads have been working to dupe parents into thinking that formula is 
equivalent to human milk, which is working. My concern here is that 
these ads have moved into mainstream media outlets and appear there in 
order to normalize formula feeding, i.e. famous people and Hollywood 
stars appear in association with formula on the same page, making it 
appear that these people use this product.

I would love to see the breastfeeding community take action on this 
worrisome trend. Letter/emails should be sent to:

www.celebrity-babies.com: send emails to [log in to unmask]

www.people.com send emails to [log in to unmask]

Marsha Walker, RN, IBCLC
Weston, MA

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