PRESSURE'S ON TO JUNK
THE JUNK FOOD ADS

BY DANIELLE HARDER

Children today spend more time watching television than almost any other activity, except sleeping – and, according to some estimates, about a quarter of all kids could be classified as obese. Many adults blame the peddlers of fast food, soft drinks, candy and pre-sweetened cereal who use sophisticated marketing to target children. Now some groups are pressuring the federal government to put an end to it.

This spring, a panel made up of academics, marketing experts, authors and broadcasters, convened by the Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance of Canada, called on the federal and provincial governments to ban all junk food advertising aimed at children.

The ban would cover television, food industry-generated Internet games, event sponsorships, product mascots and print and billboard advertising. Ken Wong, a marketing professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, was on the panel and says it’s tough to argue with the research. “The science on this one is unequivocal: children are more impressionable than adults,” he says. “They’re simply not able to make rational judgments.” Wong says while on one hand the issue is “a no-brainer,” it’s also fraught with complexities, beginning with defining “unhealthy” and at what age a child stops being a child. “As a society we do this all the time. We say you can’t drink until you’re 19, you can’t drive until 16, you can’t buy cigarettes until you’re 19. We’ve always been able to establish these arbitrary demarcations,” he says.

While it is possible to make those definitions, Wong says it’s a little more dicey to decide where and how to impose them. “We can be pretty sure that a child would watch something like The Doodlebops. Where it gets a little trickier is when you get into family programming, such as American Idol,” he says. “You can’t say I’m going to ban advertising to kids because then anything a kid might consume can’t be part of that program.” Wong says there are many options for Canada to consider, ranging from an all-out ban on advertising junk food to children to a colour-coded system where food and drinks would be categorized as to whether they could be advertised without restriction, with caution or not at all.

Quebec already bans print and broadcast advertising to children under 13 as do some European countries. Wong says while many people favour an across the board ban on advertising to children, that could have far-reaching implications. “Can you still have Timbits hockey? On one hand, if you look at what we’re proposing – in its extreme – the response would be an end to Timbits hockey and scoreboards endorsed by Coca-Cola and so on,” he says. “I’m hoping the final panel will come out with something that’s a reasonable process.”

Wong says any guidelines have to be based on scientific evidence linking certain foods and drinks to obesity. “If your legislation comes out and gives the appearance of being ridiculous to the extreme, then it’s going to be slammed and it will never be passed because no one will be able to enforce it,” he says. Wong says “not all food companies are doing bad things” and points to Coke as an example. The soft drink company stopped advertising to children 50 years ago. Wong says legislation would “level the playing field.”

Wong says guidelines on junk food could also open the door to bans on advertising other products that promote obesity in children, such as video games. “Video games become the next target,” he says. “The problem there is you cannot conclusively prove that video games lead to obesity.” The panel has asked the federal government to appoint a panel of public health experts to define “unhealthy food” within the next six months and create regulations to ban advertising of junk food and drinks within two years.

If the doesn’t happen, the panel will call for a full ban on all food and beverage marketing to children, “healthy” or not. Meanwhile, Wong says children need to be taught more about media awareness. “Media literacy is an essential part of it and not just on the part of parents. I think it’s a responsibility of industry to work with parents and provide materials to schools,” he says.

For tips on teaching media literacy to children, visit www.media-awareness.ca.

Danielle Harder is a freelance writer in Whitby, who also teaches healthy eating cooking classes. You can reach her at danielleharder@rogers.com

10.06.08