Food Marketing to Kids

Overview

Obesity is one of the most critical public health problems facing American children today.  Public health professionals concerned about the unhealthy diets and lifestyles that lead to childhood obesity have identified several causes including a reduction in physical education classes and after-school athletic programs, the proliferation of sodas and snack foods in public schools, the increase in fast-food outlets across the U.S., the trend toward super-sizing food portions in restaurants, and the growth in highly processed high-calorie and high-fat grocery products. 

Food marketing to children has also been singled out as playing a key role in this national crisis. The Institute of Medicine, for example, has compiled studies that show the importance of television advertisements in influencing unhealthy food and beverage preferences, requests and diets of children. 

In addition to commercials on TV, the target marketing of food and beverages to children takes place in other ways as well – through product placement in movies, TV shows, and video games; digital media such as text messaging, cell phones, email, and websites; and cross-promotions involving movies, popular licensed characters, and even books.  The means by which these products are marketed are limited only by the creativity of food marketers. 

Public health professionals are not only concerned about the quantity and types of advertising targeted at children and youth.  They are also alarmed about the nutritional quality of products most heavily marketed to children. Despite some improvements in recent years, the overwhelming majority of food and beverage advertising targeted to the young still tends to be for products of poor nutritional quality. For example, a recent study conducted by the Rudd Center on Food Policy and Obesity at Yale found that the breakfast cereals most aggressively marketed to children were also those that met the lowest nutritional standards.

Public health experts and obesity prevention advocates are exploring ways to address troubling food and beverage marketing trends, such as policy options to minimize marketing’s adverse effect on children. A few of these options include self-regulation; limiting toy giveaways with fast foods; pricing strategies, such as increased taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages and foods; and maximizing the positive role the media can play in addressing the childhood obesity problem, such as increasing media messages promoting fitness and sound nutrition.  Other policy options, such as menu labeling, trans fat bans, and school policies in promoting nutritious foods and increased physical activity, are addressed elsewhere on our site.

Select Resources

• Berkeley Media Studies Group website.  Contains studies, policy briefs, web links and other resources on childhood obesity and marketing issues, and other public health topics related to media.
• Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity (Yale) website.  Contains policy briefs, research reports and other resource materials on obesity prevention.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Recommended Community Strategies and Measurements to Prevent Obesity in the United States, 58 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) 1 (2009).
• Institute of Medicine, Report Brief:  Local Government Actions to Prevent Childhood Obesity (2009).

Select Research

• Victoria Rideout et al., Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds, Kaiser Family Foundation (2010).
• Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity, Trends in Television Food Advertising: Progress in Reducing Unhealthy Marketing to Young People?  (2010).
• Kunkel D et al., The Impact of Industry Self-Regulation on the Nutritional Quality of Foods Advertised on Television to Children (2009).
• Kelly Brownell et al., The Public Health and Economic Benefits of Taxing Sugar-Sweetened Beverages, New Eng. J of Medicine (2009).
• Public Health Law & Policy, Using Regulatory Fees to Combat the Adverse Effects of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages (2009).
• Amenna Batada & Margo Wootan, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Better-for-Who? Revisiting Company Promises on Food Marketing to Children (2009).
• Lisa M. Powell et al., Associations between State-level Soda Taxes and Adolescent Body Mass Index, 45 J. Adolescent Health 3 (Supp.) S57 (2009).
• Healthy Eating Research, Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Taxes and Public Health (July 2009).
• Healthy Eating Research, Food and Beverage Marketing to Children and Adolescents:  What Changes Are Needed to Promote Healthy Eating Habits? (2008).
• Institute of Medicine, Food Marketing to Children and Youth:  Threat or Opportunity? (2006).
• Elizabeth Moore, It’s Child’s Play: Advergaming and the Online Marketing of Food to Children, Kaiser Family Foundation (2006).