“Marketing is just washing over this country like a tidal wave, and we’re trying to give people swimming lessons.”
—Kelly D. Brownell, UConn Rudd Center
Ottawa, ON – May 6, 2022 – The Stop Marketing to Kids Coalition commends Patricia Lattanzio, Member of Parliament for Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, as she moves Bill C-252 to second reading today in the House of Commons. Private Member’s Bill C-252 aims to prohibit the marketing of food and beverages high in sugar, saturated fats or sodium to children under 13 years of age. Read more…
June 7, 2021 – Coalition Poids, The Childhood Obesity Foundation and Heart & Stroke call on all levels of government to follow the lead of Newfoundland and Labrador and introduce a sugary drinks levy that can be reinvested in prevention as a promising strategy to bring greater health and economic benefits. Read more…
June 17, 2019 – The Stop Marketing to Kids Coalition is calling attention to a communication to Senators in The Hill Times urging the Senate to pass Bill S-228 before the end of the current parliamentary session. Known as the Child Health Protection Act, the bill would restrict the marketing of foods and beverages high in sugar, salt and saturated fat to children 12 and under. The communication, an urgent plea to senators, was placed by the Canadian Paediatric Society (which is an endorsing organization of the Coalition) and the Pediatric Chairs of Canada. Read more…
July 30, 2017 -Heart & Stroke welcomes the recent announcement by Health Canada to launch two public consultations as part of its Healthy Eating Strategy. These consultations will allow Canadians to have input around two public policy areas that can significantly support them to be able to make healthy food choices for themselves and their families. Read more…
May 23, 2017 – To rally support for federal legislation intended to restrict food and beverage marketing to all children in Canada, Heart & Stroke’s next step in its fight against marketing to kids uses a new (and entirely fictional) advertising agency called “16 and Under” that exclusively creates ads targeting kids. Read more…
February 1, 2017 – New research reveals advertising restrictions urgently needed to protect kids and support parents. Read more…
October 7, 2016 – Jamie Oliver and Stop Marketing to Kids Coalition identify areas for immediate action. Read more…
September 28, 2016 – The Stop Marketing to Kids Coalition applauds Senator Nancy Greene Raine for introducing legislation prohibiting food and beverage marketing to children. Read more…
March 1, 2016 – The Heart and Stroke Foundation praises the Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology for its comprehensive report on obesity and important nutrition policy recommendations that will have a real impact on the health of Canadians. Read more…
February 24, 2016 – Co-led by the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Childhood Obesity Foundation, the Stop Marketing to Kids Coalition says the time has come to protect children and to support parents to make healthy decisions for their families. Read more…
May 9, 2013 – Approximately 20 health organizations have joined together in light of Canada Health Day 2013 to support of a policy statement calling for a restriction on marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to children. Read more…
NBC News
The news that the sugar industry had been keeping its finger on the scale for decades when it came to whether sweet or fatty foods were more to blame for heart disease was a shocking disclosure, but it’s not the first time corporate interests have been caught manipulating numbers to put the odds in their favor. Read more…
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.
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.
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.
Vancouver Sun
The Globe & Mail