Tag Archive for: advertising to children

Television advertising limits can reduce childhood obesity, study concludes

Science Daily 
Limiting the hours of television advertising for foods and beverages high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS) could make a meaningful contribution to reducing childhood obesity, according to a new study published this week in PLOS Medicine by Oliver Mytton of the University of Cambridge, UK, and colleagues. Researchers estimate the ban would cut childhood obesity by 40,000 and save the UK £7.4billion in lost productivity. One in three children in England leaves primary school overweight, increasing their risk of cancer, heart disease, and type-2 diabetes substantially.  Read the article

Marketers are gathering data on your kids from the apps they use, study finds

CNN 
A new U.S. study analyzed how developers collect and share personal digital information while children are using many of the tens of thousands of digital apps created for kids — a trend that is on the rise during the coronavirus pandemic as more and more children shelter and study at home. “My colleagues and I found that 67% of the apps played by 3- to 4-year-old children collected these sorts of digital identifiers — mobile serial numbers or ID codes that can be traced back to the device’s owner — and shared them with ‘third party’ marketing companies,” said lead author Dr. Jenny Radesky, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Michigan Medicine C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital. Read the article here

Social media groups urged to block ads targeting teens

Financial Times

Facebook, Google and other tech platforms should stop allowing advertisements to be targeted at teenagers, said a group of leading academics, lawyers and privacy campaigners in the UK.  Restrictions are already in place on targeting teenagers with alcohol and gambling advertisements, but the signatories to the letter said all targeted advertising should stop. “The problem isn’t just age-inappropriate ads,” said Oliver Hayes, policy and campaigns lead at the charity Global Action Plan. “It’s that targeted ads are inherently exploitative and manipulative, regardless of content.” Read the article here

Junk food marketers found targeting children on social media without repercussions

Medical XPress

A new study has found that while most major social media platforms have restrictions on the advertising of tobacco, alcohol and gambling to children, there are hardly any such restrictions in place around junk food. The study’s authors contend that the potential role of social media platforms in regulating junk food marketing has largely escaped attention. Read the article here

You can read the study here

Obesity researchers say Coke and Pepsi should stop targeting communities of color with ads

Fast Company 

Black children and teens see more than twice as many sugary drink ads (256 and 331 ads per year) as their white counterparts, according to a new report by the University of Connecticut’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. Sugary drinks are also heavily advertised on Spanish-language TV, particularly Coke and Gatorade; Powerade devotes a third of its TV ad dollars to Spanish-language TV. (Only 13% of Americans speak Spanish at home.) You can read the article here

You can read the study here

Physicians group calls for legislation to regulate digital advertising and its effect on kids

CNN

To help protect kids from the harmful effects of digital advertising and data collection, the American Academy of Pediatrics is calling on lawmakers to ban all advertising targeted to children under the age of 7. The group is urging limits to advertising aimed at those under 17.  Read the article here

 

 

Kellogg’s pulls Pringles ad from Joe Wicks ‘PE with Joe’ YouTube show

The Guardian 
At the height of lockdown in April, a “pre-programme” ad for Pringles appeared to an unspecified number of the hundreds of thousands of children (and their parents) who tune in to PE with Joe exercise sessions online every weekday morning. Barbara Crowther, Children’s Food Campaign spokeswoman, said: “Placing this ad directly before Joe’s hugely popular children’s daily PE class is a total betrayal of his work, and highly insensitive, irresponsible marketing. Children don’t need more salt, more saturated fat, more sugar, more excess calories being pushed to them during a pandemic, or indeed at any time.” Read the article here

Trevor Hancock: Standing up to help secure our children’s future

The Times-Colonist (Victoria, BC)

Trevor Hancock discusses the health impacts of poverty and inequality, and commercial activities like marketing to kids that harm children. Both were included in A Future for the World’s Children?, the February 2020 report from the WHO-UNICEF-Lancet Commission. Read the article here

Irish Heart Foundation calls for marketing bans on junk food to combat childhood obesity

MSN.com

Irish government research estimates that 85,000 of today’s children will die prematurely due to obesity. The Irish Heart Foundation is looking to decrease childhood obesity by 50% in the next decade and has proposed new taxes on sugary products as well as an end to price promotions for unhealthy foods and drinks. Read the article here

 

Kellogg’s agrees to stop calling its sugary cereals ‘healthy’

Today.com

In a lawsuit filed against Kellogg Company this year a group of people in New York and California asked if Kellogg’s breakfast products contain significant amounts of added sugar, why are they labelled as “healthy,” “wholesome” or “nutritious”?  Kellogg Company settled with plaintiffs before going to trial and agreed to remove such terms purporting health benefits. Read the article here