Researchers say food advertisers convince kids they need different food than adults. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
Lots of people are concerned
that American children are
getting fat. More than one-
third are considered overweight
or obese. And some are pointing
the finger at those who manufacture
and advertise food for kids. In
the second part of our two-part
series on food and health, Julie
Grant reports on efforts to crack
down on food marketing targeted
at children:
Transcript
Lots of people are concerned
that American children are
getting fat. More than one-
third are considered overweight
or obese. And some are pointing
the finger at those who manufacture
and advertise food for kids. In
the second part of our two-part
series on food and health, Julie
Grant reports on efforts to crack
down on food marketing targeted
at children:
Have you ever tried going to the supermarket with a five year old? They’re cuckoo for cocoa puffs, and everything else on the shelves that’s colorful with big cartoon characters – strategically placed right at kids-eye level. So, They beg. They plead. Some even just grab what they want.
It’s called parent pestering.
Marion Nestle is Professor of Public Health Nutrition at New York University and author of several books on food politics. She says food advertisers convince kids they need different food than adults. And they want kids to pester their parents.
“I hear parents tell me all the time that the kids won’t even taste things because they say they’re not supposed to be eating that. They’re supposed to be eating chicken fingers, or things that come in packages with cartoons on them.”
Nestle says marketers are just trying to sell products – they’re not worried about obesity and other health problems caused by the processed food targeted to children. She’d like to see some big changes.
“If I were food czar, I would just say, ‘you can’t advertise to children, period.’ They’re not capable of making intelligent, adult decisions about what they’re eating.”
The Federal Trade Commission agrees the ads are a contributing factor to growing problem of childhood obesity. The FTC, the Food and Drug Administration and other government agencies will recommend changes to food marketing rules to Congress later this year.
Most people in the food and advertising industries say cutting off all marketing to kids would go way too far.
Elaine Kolish is Director of the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative. It’s part of the Better Business Bureau. She’s been working with 16 of the major U.S. food manufacturers to change what is advertised to children.
Over the past few years, she says food manufacturers have spent millions of dollars to reformulate kids products – like cereals – to make them healthier.
“Before the initiative, cereals that were advertised to children might have had as much as 16 grams of sugar per serving. Now the maximum that anyone could have is 12 grams of sugar per serving. In fact, more of the cereals have less. So that’s a big improvement right there.”
And Kolish says advertising can actually help to get kids to eat healthier. For example, the McDonalds happy meal. Instead of offering kids French fries and a soft drink, the default happy meal now includes skim milk and apples – although it includes a side of caramel dipping sauce.
“I think now because of Burger King and McDonalds, alone, there’s probably more fruit advertising than ever before…and the sales and the trend data is really good. McDonalds has sold over 100-million orders of apple dippers in the last two years. That’s a lot of apples.”
But recent surveys at the University of Arizona and at Yale show that TV and online marketing toward children is still for foods that are not healthy for children. It’s mostly for things that are high in sugar, fat and salt.
Mary Engle is Associate Director for Advertising at the FTC. She says, for the most part, food companies have been taking foods that are bad for kids and only managing to make them less unhealthy.
“Whereas the proposal that the government group came up with is to only allow the marketing of truly healthful foods to children – foods that actually make a positive contribution to a healthy diet. So it’s much more limited which kinds of foods could be marketed to kids.”
Some food makers call the government proposal extreme. But government officials say they wouldn’t ban all ads – just those that encourage kids to eat bad food.
For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.