Would you support a world-wide ban on junk food advertising?
Posted by kathryn in Labels & advertising
Should manufacturers be allowed to advertise junk food to children?
This is one of the key questions being discussed at the Consumers International conference in Sydney.
The cartoon character Shrek featured heavily in food promotion earlier this year. Toys are regularly used as giveaways in cereal boxes and at fast food outlets. Many food manufacters have websites featuring games and giveaways. It’s no longer enough to market food products to parents. Instead manufacturers are now directly targeting kids.
Concerns about childhood obesity and healthy are prompting many consumer advocates to question this.
At the Consumers International conference a a World Health Organisation led restriction on junk food advertising was suggested. This would ban the use of popular cartoon characters to sell foods high in fat, sugar and salt. The ban would cover advertising on television and the internet.
What’s happening in other countries?
The level of government control over junk food advertising varies between countries:
- Finland and Germany: cartoon characters can not be used in the sale of children’s products
- Norway and Sweden: adverts aimed at children under 12 are banned
- In the UK: children’s TV personalities cannot appear in ads before 9pm
- Currently in Australia there are no such restrictions. The Children’s Television Standards were introduced 17 years ago and have not been changed since.
What do you think?
- Should food manufacterers be banned from advertising junk foods to children?
- Or is this unnecessarily restrictive and it’s up to parents to monitor their children’s intake?
- What do you think?
For more information
- Consumers International are the peak international consumer advocacy body
- Choice are blogging at the conference
- For more information on food manufacturers’ campaigns, take a look at the Choice report: food marketing: child’s play?
30 October, 2007
Comments
Basically my response is that it wouldn’t do any harm, so why not?
It’s not like it’s infringing any fundamental rights to free speech.
Although of course it won’t do any good if parents make bad choices anyway.
I would like to see more restrictions placed on advertising towards children. They are not equipped to interpret the unrealistic messages and underlying motivations – in their early years, kids do not even understand the difference between ads and TV programs. (I must admit that the distinction seems to be getting blurrier for all of us viewers…)
Obviously parents have a role to play in setting rules and explaining how advertising works to older children, but even the best parent has an enormous volume of marketing to fight against.
I live in Greenwood, Mississippi, USA (the most impoverished and obese state in the country) and I think it’s up to parents to regulate what their kids see on television and what they eat. Personally, I don’t subscribe to cable television and I encourage my son to eat healthy, nutritious foods, but I don’t completely restricting junk foods.
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