Re: Are we protected from Junk Food Corporations?

From: DonQuijote1954 (nolionnoproblem_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 08/31/04 

Date: 30 Aug 2004 22:54:11 -0700

The corporations sure know how to penetrate kids' heads--and make the
parents look bad... :(

CSPI Hits Marketing Junk Food to Kids

Food Companies Undermine Parents, Overfeed Kids, Says Report

Food marketing aimed at kids undermines parental authority and helps
fuel the epidemic of childhood obesity, according to a report issued
today by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest
(CSPI). The volume and variety of marketing techniques has exploded,
the group says, as food marketers seek new ways of bypassing parents
and directly influencing kids' food choices. Regrettably, most of the
foods marketed directly to children are high in calories and low in
nutrition, the group says.

"Parents are fighting a losing battle against food manufacturers and
fast-food restaurants, which use aggressive and sophisticated
techniques to get into children's heads and prompt them to pester
their parents to purchase the company's products," said Margo G.
Wootan, director of nutrition policy at CSPI and the report's author.
"SpongeBob Squarepants, Winnie the Pooh, Elmo, and even sports stars
like Jason Giambi are enlisted to push low-nutrition foods on kids."

The CSPI report identifies a plethora of ways that companies target
kids in their homes, in their schools, on the web, and wherever else
kids go. Examples highlighted in the report include:

-Campbell's "Labels for Education" program encourages families to
collect labels from Campbell products that schools can redeem for
equipment. It's hardly model philanthropy, says CSPI, seeing that
kids' parents would have to buy some $2,500 worth of soup , for the
school to qualify for a $59 stapler.
Krispy Kreme "Good Grades" program offers elementary school kids one
doughnut for each "A" on their report cards. CSPI points out that some
states wisely prohibit or discourage using food as a reward for good
behavior or academic performance.

-McDonald's Barbie has the doll dressed up as a McDonald's clerk,
feeding French fries, burgers, and Sprite to kid-sister Kelly in a
restaurant playset. "Unless McDonald's is paying you for ad space in
the playroom, leave this toy at the store," Wootan said. Same goes,
she says for other junk-food ads disguised as toys, like Play Doh's
Lunchables kit, where kids are encouraged to assemble Play Doh
versions of Oscar Mayer's notoriously fatty and salty lunch box items.

-The Oreo Adventure game on Kraft Foods' Nabiscoworld.com web site is
one of many corporate "advergames". In this video game, children's
"health" is reset to "100 percent" when kids acquire golden cookie
jars on a journey to a Temple of the Golden Oreo. The Oreo Matchin'
Middles shape-matching game, produced with Fisher Price, turns
playtime into a chance for companies to cultivate brand loyalty and
sell junk food.

-Pepsi's website profile of New York Yankees baseball star Jason
Giambi, which prominently displays the quote, "I usually have several
Pepsis each day—it really lifts me up," is one of many examples of a
junk-food marketer linking consumption of its product with fitness.

-Cap'n Crunch Smashed Berries cereal—which, predictably, has no
berries at all—encourages overeating in its magazine advertisements.
Once such ad in Nickelodeon magazine reads, "Kids smashed ‘em in the
factory so you can fit more in your mouth."

"No amount of eye-rolling can capture how hypocritical it is for food
company flacks to talk about ‘moderation, balance, and exercise," said
CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson. "Anyone who looks at
these marketing techniques can see that they encourage excess, not
moderation. Almost exclusively, they encourage consumption an
unbalanced diet of high-cal and low-nutrient foods. And to link junk
foods like Oreos or Pepsi to physical fitness or athletic prowess has
to be one of the most cynical and unfair marketing strategies I've
ever seen."

In the 1970s and 1980s, the Federal Trade Commission considered
restrictions on junk-food advertising aimed at kids, but those efforts
were blocked by food, toy, broadcasting, and advertising industries.
CSPI says that with rates of obesity at all-time highs in children,
now is the time to set standards on what foods may be marketed to kids
on television and in schools. CSPI also recommends that governments
sponsor media campaigns that encourage healthy eating and physical
activity, and that grocers put low-nutrition foods at parents' eye
level, not kids' eye level.

CSPI encourages state and local governments to fund their own
nutrition media campaigns by earmarking or increasing taxes on soft
drinks. More than a dozen states already have such taxes, though their
revenues typically go into general funds, and are not spent promoting
good nutrition or exercise.

Today, CSPI also called on Secretary of Health and Human Services
Tommy Thompson to make the issue of marketing junk food to kids a
central focus of the administration's anti-obesity campaign.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Are we protected from Junk Food Corporations?
    ... > CSPI Hits Marketing Junk Food to Kids ... > Food Companies Undermine Parents, Overfeed Kids, Says Report ...
    (sci.med.nutrition)
  • Power of the U.S. media
    ... kids chose the one that they perceived was from ... McDonald's," said obesity prevention expert Dr. Thomas Robinson of the ... It comes as many food and restaurant companies face pressure to cut ... back on marketing to children as rates of obesity among that age group ...
    (soc.couples.intercultural)
  • O.T. - Report: TV ads contribute to child obesity
    ... Scientists urge marketers to stop targeting junk food commercials to ... Shrek and other characters kids ... In a report released Tuesday, the Institute of Medicine said television ... The report said the food industry should spend its marketing dollars on ...
    (alt.med.fibromyalgia)
  • Re: O.T. - Report: TV ads contribute to child obesity
    ... > Scientists urge marketers to stop targeting junk food commercials to ... > WASHINGTON - SpongeBob SquarePants, Shrek and other characters kids ... > The report said the food industry should spend its marketing dollars on ...
    (alt.med.fibromyalgia)
  • Sach - From Pho to Fast Food, an Immigrants Tale
    ... American literature. ... would come through junk food. ... Her new memoir, Stealing Buddha's Dinner ... Almost all these kids were way ahead of me and Anh. ...
    (soc.culture.vietnamese)