03.01.05
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), Washington, D.C., recently released its new “Guidelines for Responsible Food Marketing to Children,” which call on food manufacturers, broadcasters, restaurants, movie studios and schools to reform the way drinks, snacks, fast food meals and other foods are marketed to kids. Over the last 10 years, according to CSPI, marketing aimed at children has increased from $7 billion to $15 billion a year. The Guidelines propose curbing certain marketing techniques, while also proposing basic nutritional thresholds for determining which foods should be marketed to kids in the first place.
CSPI claims children receive approximately 58 commercial messages each day from television alone, about half of which are food-related. The organization says that most of those advertisements are geared toward high-calorie or low-nutrition food, which it believes undermines parents’ efforts to provide healthful diets for their kids. Ideally CSPI would like to see only healthful foods marketed to kids, but the organization realizes that goal may be unreasonable. That is why it claims to have developed guidelines that allow a much broader range of food to be marketed, as long as the foods in question provide some positive nutritional benefit and aren’t too high in saturated and trans fat, salt or added sugars. CSPI suggested companies refrain from marketing items like soda and sports drinks, while encouraging the promotion of beverages, for example, that contain at least 50% fruit juice and no added caloric sweeteners. CSPI also emphasized that products be tailored to reasonable portion sizes.
Summing up CSPI’s sentiments toward junk food marketing was the organization’s executive director, Michael Jacobson. “No parent would allow a door-to-door salesman to come into the house and spend a few unsupervised minutes with the kids, yet junk food manufacturers have similar unfettered access to kids’ impressionable minds via advertising and marketing,” he said. “Food manufacturers like to put all the blame on parents, but these companies go right around parents’ backs, directly to kids—and sometimes directly to toddlers—with sales pitches for unhealthful foods.”
Kraft Foods has already moved forward with plans to limit advertising directed at children younger than age 12. However, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal (1/13/05), Coca-Cola, General Mills and Kellogg said they had no plans to change their marketing practices. In other developments, food companies and the advertising industry have come together to form the Alliance for American Advertising. The new organization will represent itself as a self-regulatory body and defend its right to advertise to children, as it believes there is no correlation between advertising trends and childhood obesity.
CSPI claims children receive approximately 58 commercial messages each day from television alone, about half of which are food-related. The organization says that most of those advertisements are geared toward high-calorie or low-nutrition food, which it believes undermines parents’ efforts to provide healthful diets for their kids. Ideally CSPI would like to see only healthful foods marketed to kids, but the organization realizes that goal may be unreasonable. That is why it claims to have developed guidelines that allow a much broader range of food to be marketed, as long as the foods in question provide some positive nutritional benefit and aren’t too high in saturated and trans fat, salt or added sugars. CSPI suggested companies refrain from marketing items like soda and sports drinks, while encouraging the promotion of beverages, for example, that contain at least 50% fruit juice and no added caloric sweeteners. CSPI also emphasized that products be tailored to reasonable portion sizes.
Summing up CSPI’s sentiments toward junk food marketing was the organization’s executive director, Michael Jacobson. “No parent would allow a door-to-door salesman to come into the house and spend a few unsupervised minutes with the kids, yet junk food manufacturers have similar unfettered access to kids’ impressionable minds via advertising and marketing,” he said. “Food manufacturers like to put all the blame on parents, but these companies go right around parents’ backs, directly to kids—and sometimes directly to toddlers—with sales pitches for unhealthful foods.”
Kraft Foods has already moved forward with plans to limit advertising directed at children younger than age 12. However, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal (1/13/05), Coca-Cola, General Mills and Kellogg said they had no plans to change their marketing practices. In other developments, food companies and the advertising industry have come together to form the Alliance for American Advertising. The new organization will represent itself as a self-regulatory body and defend its right to advertise to children, as it believes there is no correlation between advertising trends and childhood obesity.