The Marketing Map: Where Does Your Child See Food and Beverage Marketing?

Driving down the street passing a KFC sign, my 2-year old niece announced to her mom that she wanted to go to “the chicken house”. Her mom was surprised at the request because she had never taken her daughter there, nor talked about the restaurant, and her daughter rarely watched television commercials. Yet, my niece had experienced something that made her desire fried chicken.

It may not be obvious but there are many places kids spend time where they see food and beverage promotions. Research has shown that Canadian children are exposed to unhealthy food marketing on television, on the internet, on product packaging in grocery stores, and in public schools. But there may be many other places where our kids may see food marketing, such as sports centres, movie theatres, camps, convenience stores, or even billboards on the street.

You might ask, isn’t food marketing controlled in Canada? In Quebec, commercial products (foods and other products) cannot be marketed to children under the age of 13. In the rest of Canada, some (but not all) food companies have voluntarily agreed to not market to foods to children under 13, or to market only foods that are “healthy” as defined by the food industry.

Unfortunately, these programs do not fully protect our kids from seeing unhealthy food marketing. By focusing mainly on television and online marketing, these initiatives do not consider the other ways and places children are exposed to food marketing. This means that even if marketers reduce how much they target children in one place (on TV), children may still see unhealthy food marketing in other places (at school, in movies). In fact, restricting marketing in only one place may increase the level of marketing in other places!

New mandatory regulations in Canada that cover more of the places and ways children are marketed to, that have strong nutrition criteria, and that protect younger and older children will support parents and take one step forward towards helping Canadian kids grow up healthy and strong.

Prime Minister Trudeau has asked the Minister of Health to introduce new regulations on food marketing to children in Canada. Now is the time to take action and help make this happen. Send a message at stopmarketingtokids.ca.

By Rachel Prowse, Registered Dietitian and PhD Candidate in Health Promotion and Socio-Behavioural Sciences at the University of Alberta.

Tweet this blog post! 

Teens are Drinking Over a Kilo of Sugar per Month!

Recently, my son asked me to buy him a sports drink after baseball practice with a sideways glance to see if I would bite. He followed with a flurried explanation about being sweaty after running around and some mumbling about electrolytes and his muscles.

He whined and pleaded after my predictable answer that ‘water is the best drink for an athlete.’ But his question and approach mimics what is seen in the research.

  1. Sugary drinks are heavily marketed to kids
  2. Children exposed to this kind of marketing will nag their parents for unhealthy food and beverages.
  3. Parents that are nagged for junk foods or drinks are more likely to give in and buy those unhealthy products. (Although not in this case!!)

It’s amazing to me just how sneaky the marketing is, how persuasive it is and how often it operates on a subconscious level.

Most of us are probably familiar with sports drink sponsorship on TV – seeing football or hockey teams drinking from branded bottles and the branded ice chest being dumped over the winning coach which are such common images in the world of professional sports.

But the marketing has become much more sophisticated.

My son, who doesn’t see any advertising on TV, watches you-tube clips of people doing awesome and extreme sports that are sponsored by one company. He doesn’t even realize that it’s advertising but he definitely has a high opinion of that particular drink.

Another company has great big branded monster trucks that tour around at community events. But that’s not all, this company also sponsors race cars, surfing, skateboarding and mountain and BMX biking competitions. It also has a long list of athletes that it supports – not to mention DJs and then there is the gallery of scantily clad girls (and the rampant sexism is a whole other issue) .

Visit the sponsored athletes’ facebook pages or twitter accounts and you can see strong endorsements for those brands – in the clothes they wear, the images posted and even in their messages.

It’s easy to see how carefully and thoroughly these companies are targeting teen boys with all things ‘cool’ in the teen boy world. But marketers know that they can win over the shoulder markets on either side of their teen target. By targeting teens and young adults, they stand to gain a market share of younger boys that want to seem cool and older as well as those older guys that want to seem cool and younger.

The branded t-shirts, ball caps and bumper stickers for men beyond their twenties that want to hold on to their youth are one thing but there are also toys. Marketing to kids is about building brand loyalty at a very early age and therefore creating life-long consumers. Go into any convenience store and you can see the power displays that reinforce all the other TV, on-line and social media marketing – it’s a powerful mix.

With such strong and pervasive marketing, it’s not surprising that teenagers are some of the biggest consumers of sugary drinks. The average teen consumes 1.2 kilos of sugar from drinks in just a month![i, ii] This puts our children at risk for diabetes and other weight related chronic illnesses such as heart disease and cancer.

This is why the Stop Marketing to Kids Coalition is calling on governments to restrict food and beverage marketing to children.

By Rita Koutsodimos
Manager, Advocacy and Communications, BC Alliance for Healthy Living

i. Health Behavior in School Aged Children. A world health organization cross-national study. Social Program Evaluation Group, Queen’s University at Kingston. Public Health Agency of Canada

ii. Garriguet D. Beverage consumption in children and teens. Health Reports. 2008;19(4). Available from: http://www.statcan.

Tweet this blog post!

Niños Sanos: Restricting Marketing to Children in Mexico

On June 29, Canada will welcome American President Barack Obama and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto for the Three Amigos Summit. This presents an opportunity to explore public policy enacted by our neighbours.

Faced with the growing rates of chronic diseases, and concerned with an already overburdened public health care system, the Mexican government has passed a number of measures to decrease the amount of junk food Mexicans consume.

In 2014, Mexico restricted the marketing of unhealthy foods to children by banning advertisements of certain unhealthy foods between 2:30pm and 7:30pm on weekdays and 7:00am and 7:30pm on weekends. An estimated 35 per cent of TV audiences during these times are under the age of 13.

Because of this legislation, 40 per cent of ads for sugar-sweetened beverages, candy and chocolate will cease to air. It is estimated that children who watch two hours of television per day will view 10,200 fewer ads for unhealthy foods than before the legislation was enacted.

This legislation also has the potential to impact industry, as companies like Danone seek to lower the sugar content of some of their products in order to be able to continue to advertise them. Companies are also replacing advertisements for less healthy foods with some of their healthier products.

Still, despite the laudable efforts of legislators, some argue the restrictions ought to be stronger: the definition of unhealthy foods should have had lower limits for calories and sugar; many children watch television outside of the restricted times; companies can continue to advertise in public and on the Internet; and there has been no ban on cartoon characters and toy prizes.

While it is still perhaps too early to fully understand the impact of this legislation on child health in Mexico, it seems likely the Canadian government would be better off modeling its own legislation based on the M2K Coalition’s Ottawa Principles. Nonetheless, the M2K Coalition continues to monitor closely Mexico’s policy experiments to tackle the consumption of unhealthy foods, as they have undoubtedly seen some success.

By Sasha McNicoll, Coalition for Healthy School Food Coordinator, Food Secure Canada

Tweet this blog post! 

Why now? Time to stop marketing to kids in Canada

You may be asking yourself why stop marketing to kids and why now? Momentum has been building. Health organizations met in November 2014 to discuss the latest evidence around food and beverage marketing to children and developed the framework for what would become the Ottawa Principles. Since that meeting, 30 organizations across Canada have endorsed the Ottawa Principles.

Prior to the 2015 federal election, both the NDP and Liberal parties committed to introducing restrictions on the commercial marketing on unhealthy food and beverages to children. After the election, the Prime Minister reinforced this commitment by making these restrictions a top priority in the November 2015 mandate letter to the newly appointed Minister of Health, Dr. Jane Philpott.

The World Health Organization has repeatedly listed restrictions to marketing to kids as a policy option to support healthy eating and reduce childhood obesity, most recently in their January 2016 report of the commission on ending childhood obesity.

Earlier this year, 11 leading health organizations came together to launch Canada’s Stop Marketing to Kids Coalition on February 24 2016. Our vision is clear: “We envision a Canada where children and parents make nutritious food choices in an environment free of influence from food and beverage marketing to children.”

Less than a week later on March 1 2016, the Senate Committee Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology released their report, Obesity in Canada: A Whole-of-Society Approach for a Healthier Canada. The report makes 21 recommendations, including a recommendation to restrict food and beverage marketing to children.

So why now? Because the timing is right. Government and health organizations agree that our children deserve to be protected from food and beverage marketing. Together, we have an unprecedented opportunity to adopt robust, evidence-informed marketing to kid restrictions that will become the envy of the world and position Canada as a global leader in child health. Let’s make it happen. Add your voice and help us take action today.

By Elizabeth Holmes, Health Policy Analyst, Canadian Cancer Society, National Office

M2K Advocacy: Steps to success

We are students from Saskatchewan who want you to know that advocating can begin at any age. Follow these easy steps to making a difference in your community!

  1. Inspiration – It begins with an idea…

When we saw what our school canteen sold to the kids and tried to make some changes to the menu, it made us realize how much companies are trying to sell unhealthy food to kids. For that reason, it is so hard to make healthy choices. In our life we are surrounded by advertisements and reminders to eat food that’s bad for us.  We were shocked about how unhealthy our world has become and this inspired us to take on this project.

  1. Educate yourself – Knowledge is power!

There are many ways to learn about a topic. Here are some of the ways we learned about Marketing to Kids:

  • Talked to experts in the field of nutrition like our public health nutritionist
  • Attended changing the menu conference
  • Started actively looking for ways companies market to kids
    • Social media and games
    • Incentives when you buy unhealthy foods
    • Placement in stores and at our local canteen
    • Sponsorship of our sports teams
    • Packaging is fun
  1. Define your goal – Continue to make new ones!

During this project, we discovered many goals we wanted to achieve:

  • make a photo voice
  • speak with people of the division board, so that our message could be heard
  • present our story nationally, so that our message would be heard more openly to others around our country

These goals have concluded that in doing this project, our main goal is to encourage others about the importance of healthy eating and healthy choices in schools and communities. We hope that the word keeps spreading about who we are, what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it, because we want to inspire others to do the same. Marketing affects everyone and if we make a difference, in coming together, we will be the change seen in the world.

  1. Power in numbers – Surround yourself with like-minded people

In the beginning, a bunch of friends all had the same idea about the junk in our schools being so bad, we partnered with our SLC (Student Leadership Council) they helped us organize a meeting with the teacher who runs the canteen. Turns out the public health unit, nurses and nutritionists agreed with us too and offered to help. Then the Heart and Stroke Foundation heard about us and since they were working on the same stuff, they asked us if we would like to do a photo voice on M2K. From there we invited like-minded community leaders to learn about our photo voice. Then we presented at the principals meeting and to lots of service groups who all thought we were doing great work. From there we got asked to speak at the national school food conference called changing the menu. It was really great to have 450 like minded delegates, all adults! Who knew that kids and adults from across the country all want the same thing.

  1. Present your findings

It is important to share knowledge because kids are very unhealthy. It was important to present to the principles because we need to spread awareness about unhealthy eating habits. The presentation with the school board was successful because they did make our canteen healthier. The conference in Montreal was a good learning experience, since we got to go to other presentations and learn some things we didn’t know before, which helped our knowledge on unhealthy food. For the interviews, we mostly talked about how we got started and our next steps.

  1. Facing adversary – You can’t change everyone’s view
  • Laugh it off!
  • Educate yourself and others
  • Know your facts!
  • Small changes are better than no changes
  • Never give up

After coming back from Montreal we have many new plans ahead for the New Year in 2016! M2K kids hope to speak to both provincial and federal government leaders in hopes of shining light on healthy eating and marketing regulations and asking them to pass some legislation to make life better for kids. We will be partnering with the Heart and Stroke foundation once again in hopes of attending Heart on the Hill Day at Parliament this spring. By presenting at this event we hope to let the leaders know that the kids of Canada want government to stop the marketing of unhealthy foods to kids across Canada. There is a possibility that we will be spreading the word even further by taping a video that could be shared with schools about the importance and effects of marketing to kids. It will give other students an idea of how to take up the fight where they live. We will continue to encourage others to make positive changes for healthy eating and healthy choices in schools and communities. Coming back from the Changing the Menu Conference in Montreal we feel ready to take on the next challenge we`re faced with and feel that we can accomplish anything. Look out Canada, M2K is coming for you!

By Dana Ismail, Leah Bratvold, Anika Sukkhu, Bria Szell, and Sarah Szell