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 *********************************************** Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html To reach list owners: [log in to unmask] Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask] COMMANDS: 1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail 2. To start it again: set lactnet mail 3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet 4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome