A government report today that accuses food marketers of using billions in marketing dollars to woo children away from good diet choices could become a watershed on the scale of the 1964 Surgeon General’s report on tobacco.

“Ample information and studies [indicate] that television advertising influences the food preferences, purchase requests and diets at least of children under 12 and is associated with the increased rates of obesity among children and youth,” concludes the National Academies of Science’s Institute of Medicine report, billed as the ”most comprehensive review of the scientific studies.”