"Nearly half of ads targeting kids show junk food"
An article posted to CTV News says that most advertising that children and youth see are for foods that we are trying to promote as "eat less" and not "eat more." While schools are implementing healthy eating programs with vending machines and cafeterias (not applicable to post-secondary, however!), the advertising they see on television is, according to the article, completely contradictory to health-positive messages.
It begins:
In a child's buffet of food commercials, more than 40 per cent of the dishes are candy, snacks and fast food. Nowhere to be found: fresh fruit, vegetables, poultry or seafood.
Why no ads for fresh fruit, vegetables, poultry or seafood? Because fresh fruit and vegetables don't get advertised. The money for it isn't there, while processed and fast food companies invest billions into advertising to make sure you buy their products. The best you'll get is a glimpse of wholesome food in a Safeway or Save On Foods ad. As for poultry, it seems to me a long time since I've seen a Maple Leaf chicken ad, and I can't recall seeing anything about seafood beyond, what was it, KFC Popcorn Shrimp?
I remember when I was a kid laughing at "Participaction" ads (anything long is annoying, really), and how dorky they were. There's nothing like that today. Instead, we're innundated with lose weight with this, that, and the other (ESPECIALLY on the tv schedule channel). Those aren't targeted at kids (thankfully, actually), while at least Participaction could have had some influence.
Try marketing grated carrot with raisins and chopped almonds. (When I was a kid, I discovered shopped raw carrot with sugar was really, really good.) While my parents were away on holiday when I was 7 - 10 years old, my grandmother was looking after me and made me eat salad for a snack when I got home. She used yogurt with sugar as a dressing. I loved it, and have eaten salad ever since. Goodness, that would make a delicious snack (but with stevia instead!).
Quebec has laws against advertising to children, so maybe the best solution would simply be not to advertise. Another idea would be to get the candy out of the checkout aisles at supermarkets.
I don't want to tell parents what to do, but I've noted the difference in what I ate as a kid and what my nieces eat, versus what I often see kids eating in restaurants and hankering for at the grocery store. Let's face it, junk food and sugary stuff is yummy — and it's yummy for a reason. Solutions have to come from more than one direction. (Update: just found this article that offers recommendations for solutions to preventing and curing childhood obesity including "Helping children get more exercise through programs such as Participaction," as well as the startling find that "only nine per cent of parents recognized their children to be obese or overweight.")
A better physical education program where I grew up would be a good start, as well. Focus on meeting individuals' skills, rather than pointing out their weaknesses (they'll move around more when they're enjoying it), and promote group activity rather than testing (misery in running and then receiving a lousy grade on a "fitness run" test is a real bane to self-esteem and motivation). And never, ever, make them play outside in February in the rain.
I am an Interactive Designer in Vancouver, BC, and a graduate of the Communication Design program at the Emily Carr Institute. I enjoy tea, chocolate and European desserts. My passions here and elsewhere include the local eating lifestyle, environment and sustainability issues, public transit, health and design. You see? They're all related.
Comments
Hi!
You're so right about the advertising on TV. I can't recall the last time I saw fresh fruit being advertised..... Sunkist Oranges used to in the 80s & early 90s..not sure what happened to that.
One thing I noticed that's kind of ironic is that at the supermarket you'll see people pick up, say a mango perhaps and say toooo expensive & put it back and yet somehow a $3 bag of chips ends up in their shopping cart!
B.T.W did u get out to the Northern Voice conference last Feb? I went and it was great! Until I caught the flu from the other conference goers that is :-). My fave session was "mashups for non-programmers", they talked a lot about yahoo pipes. I built one for work and it's cooool!
Cheers,
Patricia
Posted by: cocacola | April 2, 2007 10:11 PM
Hey!
Yeah, Sunkist Oranges... mmm, pesticides. ;) Sunkist is a major company, though, and I don't see advertising for anything else, even BC Hot House?
Yeah, it's disgusting. Get this. A cup of fruit (about 12 wedges in a plastic cup about the size of a large sundae or tall Starbucks cup)at my school cafeteria goes for $4. No thanks. What can I get at my farmer's market for $4? Just an example: TEN POUNDS of potatoes and at least 3 oranges. Or, 6 apples, 3 oranges, and a large loaf of bread. Or a dozen extra large free-range eggs. (Ok, $4.19, which is still less than the fruit cup because of taxes.) Or regular eggs and 3 oranges. Hmm, food for 2 weeks or food for 2 minutes?
Posted by: erika | April 2, 2007 10:21 PM
P.S. No I didn't make it to NV because I couldn't afford it! I got sick regardless, hehe. That night, actually. Yahoo pipes?
Posted by: erika | April 2, 2007 10:22 PM
Ah yes, yahoo pipes. It's a new (free) online software where you can create grouped aggregated feeds that you can display on your website or blog. For example I took 15 blogs and made them into one feed sorted by published date. What makes pipes different is that you can use filters to create a personalized feed, say if for example you wanted to search craig's list for a used laptop but only wanted to search for toshibas. You can also use the pipes to scrape data off of websites in the absence of an RSS feed. One of the speakers suggested that one could use this to get job postings from various websites to display in one feed. The great thing about yahoo pipes is that you can create your own mashups without being a programmer. Pretty cool stuff they show us at Northern Voice... :-)
Posted by: cocacola | April 11, 2007 5:29 PM
Wow! That's something I'm totally looking for, too. I'm going to have to look into this more since their documentation so far doesn't quite answer my question. Thanks for telling me about this! So much exciting new stuff. I can't wait to get into it.
Posted by: erika | April 11, 2007 7:20 PM