The Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity has a new report out on TV food marketing to kids.
Even though the time kids spend watching TV has not changed much since 2008″
Get those kids outside this week!
The World Health Organization’s Europe branch has issued a brave new report: Tackling food marketing to children in a digital world: trans-disciplinary perspectives (2016)
I say brave because marketing to children is the food industry’s line in the sand.
Food and beverage companies will not stop marketing to children because doing so will hurt their bottom lines too much.
WHO Europe makes eight recommendations, all of them highly political:
1. Acknowledge States’ duty to protect children online with statutory regulation
2. Extend offline protections online
3. Define legal age, rather than leaving commercial interests to do so
4. Define marketing directed to children
5. Draw on existing legislation, regulation and regulatory agencies
6. Compel private Internet platforms to remove marketing of foods high in saturated fat, salt and/ or free sugars
7. Develop appropriate sanction and penalty mechanisms
8. Devise cross-border international responses
The report’s conclusion:
Children’s participation in digital media should not, however, be predicated on receiving digital HFSS [high in saturated fats, salt and/or free sugars] advertising. Digital marketing can amplify the power of earlier marketing practices by identifying and targeting more vulnerable populations with sophisticated analytics and creating engaging, emotion-focused, entertaining ways to reach children.
Nor should children’s digital participation be predicated on “devolving” consent to parents, which is akin to States expecting parents to completely prohibit their children from watching all television in order to avoid HFSS marketing, rather than implementing broadcast regulations.
Instead, States and supra-national actors should devise ways to allow children to participate in the digital world without being targeted by marketers with immersive, engaging, entertaining marketing of products that have been demonstrated to be injurious to their health.
Now if governments would just listen….
The Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at the Univeristy of Connecticut produces terrific reports. The latest is Baby Food FACTS: Nutrition and marketing of baby and toddler foods and drinks:
Infant formula companies have a marketing problem: breast milk is a better option, all formulas have the same nutrient composition by FDA regulation, and babies only need to use formula for a few months.
Baby food companies also have a marketing problem: babies can eat table foods (suitably ground or cut) and don’t really need the stuff in jars (convenient thought they may be).
The Rudd Center report takes a good hard look at the
The findings: The nutritional quality is pretty much as advertised but nearly 60 percent of advertising dollars go for products that are not recommended for young children such as sugar-sweetened toddler milk, nutritionally poor snack food, and Pediasure, a high-calorie liquid nutrition supplement.
Here’s the full report
And here’s a summary
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has a new Issue Brief on food companies’ use of branded characters to market to kids. Here’s what it’s talking about:
These, RWJ says, work better with junk foods than healthy foods, even though some child health advocates have called for their use only for healthy foods.
I don’t want them used to sell anything to kids. I don’t think anyone should be marketing anything to kids.
RWJ’s assessment of the present situation? “Significant opportunities for improvement still exist.”
No kidding.
I greatly enjoy Food-Navigator’s collections of articles on specific topics. Here’s one on marketing foods to kids.
While there is some evidence that the tide may now be turning on childhood obesity, 8.4% of US 2-5 year-olds; 17.7% of 6-11 year-olds and 20.5% of 12-19-year-olds are still obese, and many are lacking in essential nutrients from potassium, dietary fiber and calcium, to vitamin D. So how can the food industry respond to these concerns and develop more nutritious, but appealing snacks, meals and beverages for kids?
Addition, February 3: A reader reminds me that Food-Navigator published a guide to creating successful children’s brands a couple of months ago.
Vanessa Domine. Healthy Teens, Healthy Schools: How Media Literacy Can Renew Education in the United States. Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Here’s my blurb:
If you are not concerned about the effects of exposure to electronic media on the health of teenagers, you should be. This book presents a well-researched, highly compelling case for the urgent need for media literacy education to be incorporated into school wellness programs as soon as possible.
For information about how online marketing affects kids’ food choices, take a look at the work of the Berkeley Media Studies Group, particularly in media advocacy training.
Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) also has resources about online marketing to kids (scroll down for a list).
A coalition of children’s and consumer advocacy groups (see list below) filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charging that Google’s new YouTube Kids app violates restrictions on marketing junk foods to kids.
The coalition’s letter to the FTC details the charges. YouTube Kids, it says:
The Washington Post gives some examples:
On the American Greetings’ Strawberry Shortcake channel, for instance, a 37-second video features the red-haired doll describing the company’s “Food Fair” app, where characters pick ingredients for recipes. At the end, a banner appears showing the app can be downloaded on iTunes. McDonald’s has a 7-minute video dispelling myths about the contents of Chicken McNuggets. On another video, a deep-voiced announcer warns, “All vegetarians, foodies and gastronauts, kindly avert your eyes,” with a slow-cam close up of a juicy Big Mac. “You can’t get juiciness like this from soy or quinoa.”
Here’s the Coalition list: the Center for Digital Democracy, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Children Now, Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Watchdog, Corporate Accountability International, and Public Citizen.
This will be fun to watch. Stay tuned.
With Simon Williams, I have just co-edited a special issue of Critical Public Health: “Big Food”: Critical perspectives on the global growth of the food and beverage industry.”
Here’s what’s in it.
Editorial
Commentaries
Thanks to Simon Williams for initiating (and doing the heavy lifting on) this project, and to all the terrific contributors.
Enjoy!
