Marketing to Children

It has been a long debate over the years concerning whether or not companies should advertise their products for children to children. It is simply hard to ignore commercials that are presented during cartoon commercial breaks advertising sugary goodness. It is no mystery that young children are more likely to eat something that came in a kid friendly design packaging even though it is not good for them. Parents are trying to teach better eating habits but many children simply won’t eat those veggies they were given and will likely choose McDonald’s happy meal or something like pizza. If those veggies came from a bag containing his/her favorite cartoon character in that case 85% of children are more likely to eat it.

McDonald’s was criticized for its use of toys to get children to choose its Happy Meal. U.S. FTC report from 2006 shows that fast food companies, along with McDonald’s, spent more than $520 million on various advertising and toys to promote children’s meals. Another example would be companies like Coca Cola and claim that their marketing is not targeting children under 12 years old. But it is quite proven that drinking soda more frequently aids in obesity and diabetes in young children and teens.

In the past schools served food with low nutritional value in their cafeterias and vending machines. As of most recent years schools have been working to provide better food choices to children (No more soda and chips, but instead orange juice, milk, nutritional bars and fruits). Sites like BetterSchoolFood.org, SchoolFoodTrust.org.uk, SchoolFoodFocus.org and SchoolNutrition.org are trying to promote healthier eating habits when it comes to children and teenagers. Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution TV show brought attention to U.S. school food, a healthy school food movement that actually started in U.K. in 2005 as Jamie’s School Dinners.

“The companies spent $458 million on child-directed television advertising. Breakfast cereals accounted for more than 31% of those expenditures, or $142 million, and restaurant food accounted for 20%, or $91 million. Other food categories with child-directed television advertising were snacks ($69 million), prepared foods ($42 million), baked goods ($37 million), and candy/frozen desserts ($33 million)” (FTC report to congress July, 2008).
Although marketing to children might be ethically wrong, there are some products for children that make no advertising but have become quite a success. Silly Bands anyone?

World health Organization has published an interesting paper tackling the marketing of food products to children. Check it out: here.

* (Photos by Adnana for YPAinc.net)