Tag Archive for: advertising to children

How children are being targeted with hidden ads on social media

The Conversation

Funny memes, insider-driven stories or inspirational content, known as content marketing, is advertising that disguises its commercial nature with no call to action. It promotes positive emotions in the consumer and often there is no obvious connection to the product or the service being advertised. Content marketing on social media is hard for children to recognize since they have fewer skills for recognising advertising than adults. Read more

Experts warn about the advertising of ultra-processed food for children on Youtube

News Medical Life Sciences 

Researchers from the Department of Communication and Social Psychology at the University of Alicante (UA), warn about the advertising of ultra-processed food aimed at children by popular YouTubers in the form of challenges and contests. Read more

Harmful marketing threatens children’s right to healthy food

Devex .com 

Will Brett Harding argues that a child rights-based approach would demonstrate the universality of harmful commercial marketing to children, and of the need to protect children from products that cause harm, as we know unhealthy food and beverages do. Read more

Bite Back 2030 – a youth led campaign against junk food – team up with Dulwich Hamlet Football Club 

Brixton Buzz 

As part of their campaign to end the link between junk food advertising and sport Bite Back has teamed up with the club to set an example to others of what can be done to promote child health instead. The deal was announced after a summer working hard to highlight the extent to which sport is being used to give junk food a starring role in children’s minds, from Coca-Cola’s sponsorship of the Olympics to the cricket Hundred, where the players are dressed up as giant crisp packets. Read more

 

School routes swimming in junk food ads

Medical Xpress
A study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health revealed that of the 4016 advertisements observed along 7 bus, walking and train routes to 4 Perth high schools almost half were for food and 80 percent advertised junk food.  Only 8 per cent advertised healthy foods. Read more

Adolescents bombarded with junk food marketing on social media 

Medical Xpress
According to new research from the University of Wollongong, for every hour that an Australian child spends online on their phone, they view more than 17 food and drink ads, a figure that is almost nine times higher than their exposure via tv advertising. Associate Professor Bridget Kelly, the lead researcher on the study, said the rate of promotion for unhealthy food was 50 times higher than the rate for healthier products. Read more

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

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…

Germany tightens rules on marketing food to children: ‘Advertising must not induce children to eat unhealthily’

Food Navigator

Germany’s voluntary code governing marketing food to children has been updated. “Advertising must not induce children to eat unhealthily,” Federal Minister of Food Julia Klöckner stressed.  Changes to the code include increasing the age that the code covers to 14, and expanding the scope of channels to include video-sharing platforms and social media, including YouTube and TikTok. Read more