PressEthic

This week the New South Wales Government in Australia called for a nationwide ban on fast food advertisements to children. A study conducted by the NSW Government revealed that children are exposed to 77 fast food television ads on average per week.

The Sydney Morning Herald revealed that the Australian Federal Government has rejected this call. The Department of Health claims that there is no established link between fast food advertising and obesity.

Perhaps the Department of Health should review research done by the University of Otago in New Zealand. It reveals a direct correlation between the amount of time watching television and poor health in children (including childhood obesity). Below the authors of the study explain how television leads to poor health:

1. Watching television may take up time that would have otherwise been spent in more active pursuits. In this study, adolescent television viewing was associated with reduced levels of physical activity.

2. Although television adverts for tobacco were banned in 1963, tobacco imagery has been common on children's television (Thomson & Wilson NZ Med J 1978). Watching televised sport has been associated with smoking in New Zealand schoolchildren.

3. Television advertising in New Zealand during children's viewing time tends to promote an unhealthy diet (Hammond et al Aust N Z J Public Health 1999, Wilson et al Aust N Z J Public Health 1999).

While there may yet not be any causal evidence attributing television advertising to childhood obesity, surely there is enough anecdotal evidence to indicate it is a significant contributor. One cannot ignore the powerful effects of marketing campaigns. Furthermore, according to the SMH article, the Australian Federal Government’s leading health bureaucrat told a meeting of food industry executives that parents are responsible for reducing childhood obesity, not the companies. The same companies that spend $200 million per year on advertising junk food to children.

It is completely naïve for one to believe it is solely the role of parents to control what their child eats. Is it fair to pit one parent against the hundreds of marketing messages that children are exposed to every week? For instance another University of Otago pilot study reveals the intensity of outdoor advertising surrounding schools. In a one kilometer radius surrounding high schools in Wellington, New Zealand over 2/3 of the outdoor advertisements are attempting to sell junk food.

Marketers are in the business of persuasion. They rely on a vast array of techniques to convince consumers to buy. While parents (like educators) can instruct children about eating healthy, they are losing the battle to highly skilled marketers tempting children with the latest fast food fads. Psychologists also argue that children do not have the cognitive defenses to make rational decisions regarding advertising. (It is also debatable whether adults are able to consciously avoid the persuasiveness of advertisements either!)

Furthermore as children get older, adults have less influence over what the child buys to eat. Teenagers will make their own decisions regarding what they want to eat on the weekends and on their way home from school.

Governments must realise the importance of intervention in this field. This social action is necessary to help support parents and health professionals in their quest to improve the health of children. Marketing is too pervasive for parents to take on by themselves. On this note it was good to see an article today revealing that Governor Schwarzenegger had enacted laws in California to ban the sale of junk foods in schools.

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I apologise that the Sydney Morning Herald article and the Sacbee article require registration - but at least it's free!