Parents fighting childhood obesity must compete with clever and pervasive junk food marketing pitched directly at young children, according to an independent study conducted for The Cancer Council Australia.
The Cancer Council is calling for regulation of junk food marketing to children to reduce an expected obesity-related surge in future cancer incidence, with the new research emphasising how extensively food companies promote their unhealthy products to young children and use imagery to convey a false association with health and fitness.
Chair of The Cancer Council Australia’s Nutrition and Physical Activity Committee, Terry Slevin, said the new report, Food Marketing to Children in Australia, showed the extent to which food companies directly advertise to children, rather than to their parents.
“Use of online games, quizzes, competitions, cartoon characters, print advertising, premium prizes, toys and other marketing trickery makes promotion of unhealthy food a complex web that often goes undetected by parents who are doing their best to encourage healthy eating,” he said.
“And where advertising is apparently targeted at parents, the emphasis is often on an association with health and fitness, even though in most cases the products are high in sugar, saturated fats and salt.”
Mr Slevin said the research included interviews with young children, showing how strongly they were influenced by the strategies used to encourage them to purchase unhealthy foods.
The University of Wollongong independently conducted the study for The Cancer Council, analysing the practices of eight of the largest food companies in Australia.
Lead author Professor Sandra Jones said all companies analysed either had public policy statements about their commitment to responsible marketing of food products to children, promoted brands that emphasised their “natural” content, or used sports stars and imagery to convey a perception of health and fitness.
“Our findings suggest that, despite these policies, most of the products promoted to children – and recalled by children – were those high in sugar, fat and salt,” Professor Jones said.
The report concludes that Australia’s current regulatory arrangements around food marketing are ineffective in helping to control consumption levels of foods that have a negative impact on the health of Australian children.
The Cancer Council Australia will be calling on the next Australian Government to introduce restrictions on the way junk food is marketed to children to help prevent future increases in the six potentially fatal cancers linked to obesity.
The study report is available at: www.cancer.org.au/publications
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