Food Marketing to Kids: New Approaches to Consumer Education

As a grad student I somehow seem to be on 5 million (give or take a few) mailing lists an receive a plethora of academia focused emails that are usually challenging to sift through. As challenging as it can be to give them due attention, every once in a while I come across something that catches my eye and makes it all worthwhile. I was forwarded a website about food marketing to kids, and I thought I'd share a cause near and dear to my heart.

Ruthless food marketing tactics are increasingly being focused at children, a consumer group with a lot of sway and little ability to see through the cartoon covered, website promoting, free toy give away ploys of food companies to sell their products.

Walk into any supermarket, crouch down, and look at what products are placed at children's eye level and reach, it's no coincidence that this is where you will find the majority of fat and sugar laden treats and "foods" meant to attract the attention and desire of kids.

The direct marketing of food (and in most cases heavily processed sugar and fat added foods) has become such a pervasive problem that many special interest and public health groups are trying to force government to limit and or eliminate food marketing to children. The UN for example, mentions this specifically in a Report on the Right to Food


"Adopt statutory regulation on the marketing of food products, as the most effective way to reduce marketing of foods high in saturated fats, trans-fatty acids, sodium and sugar (HFSS foods) to children, as recommended by WHO, and restrict marketing of these foods to other groups" 


Here's a great example of marketing to children. This comes from a company offering prizes and incentives to schools that carry their brands. This add is a perfect example of how food marketing can make almost any food appear "healthy" or a "good choice" "Better" for you chocolate snack

What I came across today seems to be a very innovative approach to teaching kids about food marketing, and how children can learn to more critically asses the images and messages being presented to them. A website, created by the Media Awareness Network, has created an Coco's Adversmarts: An Interactive Unit on Food Marketing which is a game where children design they're own food marketing gimmicks and in the process learn about how foods are marketed to them. I really like this approach because as important as banning or at the very least limiting food marketing to children is, it is far more empowering to teach them to think critically about the information presented to them. I think this would be a very powerful tool in the classroom and at home.

While I continue to support and join in the demand for regulation on food labelling and marketing, I greatly applaud efforts like these that give power through education to the consumer, especially societies most vulnerable consumers, children.