April 20 (Bloomberg) -- Kellogg Co., the world’s largest cereal maker, agreed to settle U.S. Federal Trade Commission charges that it falsely claimed Frosted Mini-Wheats improve children’s attentiveness.

The Federal Trade Commission said the settlement bars Kellogg, based in Battle Creek, Michigan, from making unsubstantiated health claims about Frosted-Mini Wheats or other products. The company agreed not to misrepresent the results of scientific tests, the FTC statement said.

The FTC said that in ads and on packaging Kellogg claimed the attentiveness of children who ate Frosted Mini-Wheats at breakfast increased by almost 20 percent. The FTC said the clinical study Kellogg cited in the ads found that only half the children who ate the cereal showed any improvement in their attentiveness.

“It’s especially important that America’s leading companies are more ‘attentive’ to the truthfulness of their ads and don’t exaggerate the results of tests or research,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in a statement.

“We stand behind the validity of our clinical study, yet have adjusted our communication to incorporate FTC’s guidance,” Kellogg said in a statement.

Kellogg’s “astonishing claims” about the cognitive-health benefits of Frosted Mini-Wheats “were laughable on their face and never should have surfaced in an advertising campaign by a major food manufacturer,” Bruce Silverglade, legal director of the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest, said in a statement.

This should be “just the beginning of a coordinated new effort to rein in dishonest advertising and marketing by food companies” and the FTC should require corrective advertising in such cases, Silverglade said.

Kellogg fell 50 cents to $39.60 at 4:02 p.m. in composite New York Stock Exchange trading.

To contact the reporter on this story: James Rowley at jarowley@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 20, 2009 16:03 EDT