Health Habits

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Posts Tagged ‘advertising’

Big Brother v.s. Childhood Obesity

January 27th, 2009

original big brother poster available at tomgpalmer.com

Yesterday in Quebec, Saputo Inc, makers of Vachon snack cakes, pled guilty to 22 charges under a provincial law that prohibits advertising at children under the age of 13.

The company was fined $44,000 for a 2007 marketing campaign that involved distributing Igor cakes and merchandise in daycare centers.

So, what exactly did Saputo/Vachon/Igor do wrong?

In 1997, they contracted P2P Proximité Marketing to promote Igor and his tasty cakes.

And how did they promote these taste treat sensations?

They designed a cartoon mascot to represent the product. Nothing new here…does anyone remember Count Chocula, Toucan Sam, the Lucky Charms leprechaun, etc…

[youtube=http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=1cEOKS5-DcQ]

They also created a promotional package that included:

A Dance Igor CD
An Igor story booklet promoting good nutrition and physical activity
Igor stickers
2 Igor cakes, and
A bunch of Igor coupons

And then they distributed these Igor promo packages to DAY CARE centers all across Quebec.

Provincially funded day care centers.

They also gave 20 day care participants a group outing of their choice worth $3000.

And they weren’t done yet.

In their attempt to encourage physical activity and healthy eating amongst their potential customers, they created:

a website (taken down post verdict),
a poster highlighting Igor’s b-boy dance moves, and
a dance video designed to help the little kiddies burn off all of that sugar from their post nap-time Igor cake binge.

[youtube=http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=XjFaYWsdNg8]

And just to put the proverbial icing on the cake, the day-cares had also been told that this program would improve the children’s fitness as they would learn to do the Igor dance.

But this isn’t too surprising when you consider that “the cakes themselves, which were shaped like a gorilla and had strawberry, chocolate or vanilla filling, were billed by the company as “a delicious and nutritious snack” when combined with fruit and milk”.

So, how did this end up in the court room?

Soon after the marketing campaign was launched, Suzie Pellerin, director of an anti-obesity group called Coalition Poids, joined with the Union des consommateurs to file the complaint against Saputo.

After yesterday’s decision, Ms. Pellerin was quoted as saying; “This is a victory for children, considering the impact of junk food on child health.”

Ms. Pellerin said she hopes the charges against Saputo will send a message to other companies. “Using children to sell products goes against the law,” she said. “Since we cannot act on the content of food offered to children, we can at least reduce their exposure to this advertising.”

Her group was also instrumental in prompting the charges against McDonald’s, Burger King and General Mills, expected to go to court this year.

McDonald’s is facing nine charges related to its sponsorship of a series of children’s movies broadcast on Tele-Quebec during the Christmas holidays.

General Mills faces one charge for its Lucky Charms web site, where children can play games featuring Lucky the Leprechaun.

Burger King faces 11 charges stemming from the distribution of toys with their kids’ meals.

Regarding the Burger King complaint, Ms Pellerin said that, “these collectible toys are a form of advertising that encourages children to increase their visits to Burger King restaurants and demand the meal needed to obtain these toys,” the Coalition Poids stated when its complaint was filed in December, 2007.

Okay, hold the phone for just one minute.

We’re talking about little kids here, right?

Little kids demanding junk food and toys.

This is supposed to be surprising? That kids like junk food and crappy fast food restaurant toys???

And where are their parents?

I would have assumed that it’s the parents who actually purchase the junk food.

Are we supposed to believe that these kids are stealing their parent’s SUV, driving down to Burger King and demanding their kiddie meal toys from the pimply faced drive-thru kid?

And how are those kids planning on paying for that kiddie meal?

They don’t have jobs.

You don’t think that they would resort to violence do you?

It sounds just like Lord of the Flies.

Except that, instead of a bunch of half-starved savages, Igor and the Saputo gang have created a bunch of overweight, sugar addicted 5 year olds running around holding up fast food restaurants for their kiddie meal toys.

What is this world coming to???

The next thing that you’re going to tell me is that the people who launched this lawsuit aren’t doing this out of the goodness of their hearts and the righteousness of their cause.

That they are in the business of going after bad guys who sell junk food, alcohol and cigarettes.

That they stand to get promotions and increased government funding because of their highly publicized win against Saputo/Vachon.

Damn it!!!

Now I don’t know who to cheer for.

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Breaking News! The government thinks you're fat!

May 9th, 2008

Jeremy Sammut of ABC News (Australia) has written an article claiming that government sponsored programs that promote public health don’t work.

While his focus is specific to the Australian experience, his claim that Australia’s government has squandered public funds on advertising campaigns may be applicable to both Europe and North America. The fact is, obesity is on the rise in the ‘developed’ world. Attempts by national or regional governments to promote a healthy lifestyle have been unsuccessful in reversing this trend towards obesity.

Sammut makes a few very interesting observations.

First, he claims that when government assumes the role of health nazi/nanny, it absolves the individual of “their primary responsibility for the unhealthy lifestyle decisions they continue to make”, and as a result, “the lifestyle disease ‘epidemic’ is blamed on a lack of government-funded entitlement to preventive primary care”.

This takes us to the second point; “the limits of government authority over individual behaviour, and the importance of personal qualities in regulating it – why nearly 40 years of health promotion has coincided with ascending rates of lifestyle disease”.

And if we are going to allow government to assume authority over our behavior, we have to question the motivations behind this program.

Quite often, “advocates of more spending on lifestyle disease prevention often draw false parallels with the success of the campaign against tobacco smoking”. This argument is specious in that smoking bans and the ’sin’ taxes applied on tobacco products are examples of public health regulation, not health promotion.

You would think that applying this model to public exercise and nutrition would be near impossible. Smokers were a minority group and their behavior was found to be less than enchanting by a large portion of the population. Simply put, the majority ganged up on them and enacted laws that made smoking a financial and logistical pain in the butt.

How would government apply this strategy when the majority of the population does not exercise, eats junk food and has no intention of changing?

They would start with the children. Apply a little parental guilt. Ban junk food from school (already happening). Slap a sin tax on ‘junk food’. Expand that tax to include bacon, eggs, cheese, filet mignon, etc…

Wow! Big Brother wants to tax my bacon & eggs.

While that is unlikely (I hope) to happen, Sammut’s argument is that the health promotion programs advocated for by certain lobby groups, prepared by marketing companies and approved by governments have not been successful.

In Canada, advocates of the ParticipACTION program (historical info) have considered it a success due to it’s longevity and the fact that “two years after the agency had ceased to operate in 2001, almost 80% of Canadians still recognized the ParticipACTION logo and message”.

No mention of it’s positive impact on the health of Canadians. Wasn’t that the point of the program?

Nope, cheesy commercials that you can’t get out of your head. Like this ,this, this, and check out this spoof. Classic fromage.

My Two Cents

As much as I appreciate the light that Dr. Sammut has shined on this subject, I was a little disappointed by his conclusion.

“It is therefore timely to review the evidence. Because when the assumptions are questioned and the evidence examined with a clear eye, what is revealed is that there is actually slim support for the belief that preventive public health policies – be they ‘community-wide’ or ‘high-intensity’ lifestyle interventions – have in the past brought obesity and lifestyle disease under control, or that they are likely to in the future”.

Review the evidence?

Do nothing?

While I agree that most if not all governments have a great talent for throwing great big bags of money at problems that they have no hope of solving, does that mean that as a society we are doomed to accept gluttony and sloth as our birthright?

Here are two possible solutions.

In the U.K., doctors are able to write prescriptions for exercise.

Personally, while I believe that this plan is flawed due to the fact that when the government is looking to spend public dollars, there will always be bureaucrats and service providers ready and willing to overcharge and under-deliver. However, to be fair, I should mention that this program has not been in operation long enough to show whether it is successful or not.

Another possibility would be to offer tax refunds to those individuals that can prove that they are pursuing a healthy lifestyle. Instead of demonizing the couch potatoes amongst us, reward the energizer bunnies.

What do you think?

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Posted in Diet - General, In the News

Tags: advertising Diet/Nutrition fitness government obesity other health issues participaction promotion regulation

Newsflash! – Junk food advertising is misleading!!!

April 18th, 2008

The BBC has reported that 83% of U.K. consumers “believed irresponsible marketing was making it harder to encourage children to eat well”.

The survey was conducted by Which?, the U.K.’s largest independent consumer organization.

The survey also found that “most of the 2,000 questioned want the government to do more to control the marketing of unhealthy food to children”.

Currently, the Brits have banned television commercials promoting junk food programmes aimed at children under 16.

Supporters of this survey are now calling for complete ban on junk food advertising on ALL programmes aired before 9 p.m. Additionally, they are requesting the government impose rules addressing junk food advertising on the internet and on packaging.

The ‘icing on the cake’ argument was offered by Clare Corbett, a food campaigner at Which?.

Corbett said “With childhood obesity and diet-related health problems on the increase, the government must take serious action and soon.”

To summarize:

Junk food is bad

Advertisers brainwash children into wanting junk food

Children pester their parents

Parents feed their children junk food

Children get fat eating junk food while watching television ads about junk food

The U.K.’s largest consumer protection group asks parents if the government should be doing more to keep their children safe from obesity

Parents overwhelmingly agree, demanding that the government solve childhood obesity by removing the offending advertisements.

Advertisers produce another survey indicating that “76% of UK adults believe that introducing a 9pm watershed on food advertising would not reduce the level of childhood obesity”.

The government is left to decide if banning all junk food ads on t.v. before 9 p.m. will win them the next election.

Your daily dose of reality

Junk food is bad

We are genetically disposed to prefer sweet, salty, greasy, calorie dense foods. We crave these things as a mechanism of survival. Genetics. Millions of years.

Advertisers know this. Food manufacturers know this. They sell us what we want. If we don’t want it, we won’t buy it. If we don’t buy it, they won’t sell it.

Every parent knows that feeding your children junk food while sitting them in front of the t.v. is guaranteed to make them fat.

What to do, what to do

Parents set the example for their children.

Stop buying junk food. Not just for your children, you too.

Stop watching t.v. Get outside and exercise. If it’s too cold, read a book.

Stop expecting the government to do everything for you.

The rant endeth.

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