Help our post-pandemic health by ending food marketing to children

The Toronto Star

An op-ed from Chantal Peticlerc and other coalition members highlights the importance of restricting food marketing aimed at children, especially in a post-pandemic context. Read more

Stop Marketing To Kids Youth Team Recruitment

Are you passionate about social change? Health? Do you want to be part of a movement in Canada working towards restricting harmful food and beverage marketing to children? Then read on!

In 2016, the Minister of Health launched a Healthy Eating Strategy as part of the Government’s vision for a healthy Canada that included restricting the commercial marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children. However, this commitment has never been fulfilled.

The Stop M2K Coalition is seeking young Canadian leaders to join our youth team as we continue to advocate for restrictions to food and beverage marketing to kids. With your help, Canada has the potential to become a world leader in advancing children’s health, and public health, for generations to come. The selected candidates will play a key leadership role in mobilizing young Canadians to campaign for robust restrictions to food and beverage marketing that targets children and youth unfairly.

WHAT DOES A MEMBER OF THE STOP M2K DO?

  • Dedicates 2-3 volunteer hours a week.
  • With support engages and mobilizes youth to advocate for restrictions to food and beverage marketing to children and youth.
  • With support, tracks success metrics and evaluates impact of this youth-led campaign

WHO SHOULD APPLY?

Young leaders looking to: learn more about this issue, sharpen their social change skills, build a track record of leadership and success and leave a legacy of positive change in Canada:

  • Ideal candidates are 18 to 30 years old
  • Successful candidates must be able to commit 2-3 hrs/week of volunteer time to this initiative consistently throughout 2021 & 2022.
  • Candidates with communications and social media experience are preferred

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS?

  • Being a key member of a youth-lead team that has potential to help shape federal restrictions
  • Gaining social change campaign development and social media experience
  • Working with Canada’s leading health organizations
  • Being a part of creating a healthier nation–and world–for children and youth

HOW TO APPLY

Please send a resume and answers to the following questions (maximum 300 words) to corrine@stopmarketingtokids.ca:

  1. What interests you about ending food and beverage marketing to kids in Canada?
  2. Describe one creative way in which you think we could engage other young Canadians in this movement.
  3. Why do you think you are a good candidate for this leadership opportunity?

APPLICATION DEADLINE: Friday, August 6 2021 at 11:59PM, EDT

Would you support a sugar tax?

CBC Radio Maritime Connection 

Following the news that the province of Newfoundland & Labrador was introducing a sugar levy in April 2022, Stop Marketing to Kids Coalition co-chair Dr. Tom Warshawski was interviewed on CBC Radio’s Maritimes Connection program to discuss the benefits of a sugar levy. Listen here

Skipping a trip to the grocery store may lead to fewer junk food purchases

CNN 

Study participants who ordered their groceries online spent less money on junk food compared to when they shopped in person, according to a study in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior. Lead study author Laura Zatz, a senior adviser at The Behavioural Insights Team, said “Online shopping allows shoppers to avoid abundant in-store marketing and enticing food stimuli, which encourages us to add items to our basket that we didn’t plan to purchase,” she said. Read more…

What is driving Australians’ unhealthy food habits

Medical Xpress

A new online tool brings together the best available data to describe Australia’s food environments, providing a clear picture of the ways that environment drives people, including children, to consume too many of the wrong types of foods. Australian children see more than twice as many ads for unhealthy food compared to healthy food on TV. And when kids are on their mobile devices, they are hit with as many as ten unhealthy foods and drink ads every hour. Read more

You can find the dashboard at https://foodenvironmentdashboard.com.au

Study exposes cognitive vulnerabilities to soft drink advertisements

News Medical Life Sciences 
A new study from Flinders University, published in Appetite, found participants who found it difficult to resist sweet drinks compared to non-sweetened control beverages (e.g., water) – were more responsive to the ads than those without these tendencies. The Australian study compared the ability of 127 university-age students (18-25 year olds) to withstand or succumb to the urge to reach for a soft drink when viewing television advertisements. Read more

Fears junk food regulation chilled by free trade agreements

Stuff NZ 

International free-trade agreements threaten to put a “chill” on junk food regulations, experts in NZ say as efforts to combat child obesity have stalled. Global obesity expert Boyd Swinburn, a professor of population nutrition and global health at the University of Auckland, said the trade agreements came through a “very undemocratic, non-transparent process”, and that the law needed to be strengthened so that public health was not badly affected by free-trade agreements. Read more

What Are We Feeding Our Kids? review – junk food exposé will leave you queasy 

The Guardian

In What Are We Feeding Our Kids?, Dr. Chris van Tulleken looks into the health effects – particularly for children – of the increasing consumption of ultra-processed food. It costs twice as much to get 100 calories from fresh fruit, vegetables and fish in the UK as it does to get them from readymade food.  Tim Rycroft, the chief operating officer of the Food and Drink Federation, gives the standard line about needing to ensure people are empowered to make “good choices”. Van Tulleken pushes back about how much choice there is in an environment where everything – availability, price, marketing and so on – is designed to push the consumer one way. Read more

The digital world is built on advertising. How do we help kids navigate it?

CNN 

Dr. Jenny Radesky, a developmental behavioural pediatrician and media researcher at the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital writes that adults need to understand the complicated ways that advertising shows up in apps and on video platforms and social media.  In particular, the aspects that aren’t visible, like data collection. Once understood the information can be translated to kids so that they can build critical thinking about the messages they are fed. Read more…

Junk food ads don’t just harm children’s health—they also infringe on their online privacy

The Counter 

Public health advocates have long criticized ads for unhealthy food as harmful to children’s health, but a new report by the Center for Digital Democracy, a nonprofit that advocates for stricter regulation of tech companies, makes the case that they may also infringe on kids’ privacy. “Global giants in the food and beverage industry are working together with leading tech companies to ensure that unhealthy brands and products are woven into the media and cultural experiences that dominate the lives of young people,” reads the report. Read more …