It’s time to protect children from the advertisers
Many campaign organisations believe that children are especially vulnerable to the powerful emotive messages in advertisements and that advertisers readily exploit children for commercial gain. The effects of marketing targeted at children are far reaching and place a disproportionate burden on low-income families. Charlie Powell describes the unhealthy way in which childhood is increasingly being transformed into a market.

The exploitative nature of advertising
The Swedish ‘gold standard’
The promotion of unhealthy foods
Poverty and dietary inequalities
Food advertising on television
Regulation of advertising in the UK
What the advertisers say

There is no doubt that in the modern world children are under increasing amounts of commercial pressure. Marketing professionals spend millions of pounds on marketing communications targeted directly at children. Although TV advertisements represent the most obvious form of marketing, children are exposed to commercial messages through many media. Advertising has become part of sophisticated and integrated marketing strategies, which are designed to reach children in many different ways. As a result, children are constantly confronted with advertising messages: on television and radio, on the Internet, at the cinema, in comics and magazines, on food labels, on breakfast cereal packets and even at school.

Sales promotions take many forms. We are all familiar with the free goodies and gadgets which accompany children’s magazines, cereal packets and so-called fast food ‘happy meals’. These ‘free gifts’ usually come as part of a series, inviting children to collect the set and ensuring repeat purchases for the manufacturer and retailer. Character merchandising, in which a link between a product and children’s favourite television or film characters is established, is another technique frequently used by marketing professionals. Good examples would include the wide range of children’s food products which carry imagery from characters such as Barbie, the Flintstones, Noddy and the Teletubbies, some of which are of dubious nutritional value.

It is particularly distasteful when advertising is hidden from children. Examples include magazine advertisements which are disguised to look like the rest of the publication, or advertising messages which are packaged in different ways in order to gain entry into schools. For instance, ‘educational’ packs often include commercial messages that are difficult for teachers to spot, let alone their pupils.

Covert or overt, advertising places stress on family life by encouraging children to put pressure on parents, pestering them to buy particular branded goods. This ‘pester power’ may do more harm than simply provoking conflict between parents and children and is likely to result in a disproportionate burden and anxiety for low-income families. The relentless pressure from children to buy the same branded goods as their peers is felt more keenly by those on lower incomes and fulfilling the demands can result in financial hardship or contribute to family debt. By diverting their budget away from essentials, the health and welfare of low-income families may be put at risk.

The pressures created by advertising on lower socio-economic families are recognised at the highest levels of government. Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer, attacked the pre-Christmas 2000 advertising blitz because he believed that it was unfair to poor parents who could not afford the brand name their children craved. [footnote 1]

The exploitative nature of advertising
Dr Aric Sigman, a psychologist who has headed several health education campaigns on behalf of the Department of Health, explains in the Co-op’s Blackmail report [footnote 2] how advertisements directed at children are designed to address and exploit children’s basic needs and tendencies. He identifies four vulnerabilities which are routinely exploited by advertisers. These are the need for nurture and protection; the need for stimulation; the need for role models; and the need for peer group acceptance. Sigman argues that advertising disrupts the normal process of child rearing, subverting a child’s needs when they are most vulnerable and pliable.

That advertisements are designed to contain messages that prey upon the emotional weaknesses and insecurities of children is a widely held view. In an article entitled, ‘Why they whine: how corporations prey on our children’, [footnote 3] an American advertising agency president is quoted as saying, ‘Advertising at its best is making people feel that without their product, you’re a loser. Kids are very sensitive to that. If you tell them to buy something, they are resistant. But if you tell them that they’ll be a dork if they don’t, you’ve got their attention. You open up emotional vulnerabilities, and it’s very easy to do with kids because they’re the most emotionally vulnerable.’

Television content analyses undertaken by researchers from Leeds University [footnote 4] have shown that child-orientated adverts are more frequently repeated and are more likely to use animation, pace and central characters, magic and fantasy, together with a wide range of emotional appeals (fun, action, adventure and achievement). The researchers conclude that children’s television adverts are designed in a manner to engage attention and emotional response.

Young children, especially, do not grasp the motives behind advertising or realise that the products advertised may not be good for them. They do not realise that the commercial message may be biased and does not always give the whole picture. Advertising is viewed either as entertainment or as a source of reliable information, or both. Young children have no concept that the adults responsible for advertising view them solely as a source of sales and profit.

The Swedish ‘gold standard’
Concerns over the effects of advertising on children are shared by a number of European countries which have introduced a range of restrictions on advertising to children (Table 1). The Nordic countries are at the forefront of protecting children from the effects of advertising. Most notably, Sweden has the strictest controls in Europe and in 1991 a ban on all television and radio advertising targeted at children under the age of 12 years was introduced. The Swedish Government takes the view that advertising to children is morally and ethically unacceptable. This is also a generally accepted view within Swedish society and there is even support for the ban from the country’s advertising industry.

The Swedish position is supported by research which demonstrates that children have difficulty in distinguishing between the purpose of advertising and other modes of communication. A review of recent research, published in 2001, concludes that most children only develop an ability to explain the underlying motives and aims of advertising at around the age of 10 to 12 years.

The promotion of unhealthy foods
Manufacturers and retailers spend millions of pounds each year promoting unhealthy food products (Table 2). These are generally highly processed foods which contain high levels of fat and/or sugar and/or salt and include confectionery, crisps and potato snacks, soft drinks and other so-called ‘fast’ or pre-prepared ‘convenience’ foods.

The reason for professional, parental and public concern arising from the promotion of unhealthy foods to children is the fact that diets of poor nutritional quality affect children’s current and future health. High consumption of unhealthy foods and soft drinks may displace more nutritious food (for instance, fruit and vegetables) from children’s diets, result in excess energy intake leading to overweight and obesity, cause dental diseases and contribute towards the development of coronary heart disease, cancer, hypertension, diabetes and numerous other health disorders.

Mixed messages are common. Walkers crisps was recently awarded the prestigious Business in the Community Award for Excellence 2000/2001, for their ‘Books for Schools’ promotion in which children saved tokens from packets of crisps. However, the advice about this type of commercial involvement in schools given in the National Audit Office report, Tackling Obesity in England, [footnote 5] is clear, when it states, ‘This would act directly in opposition to initiatives to discourage over-dependence on such energy-dense snack foods in favour of balanced meals and increased consumption of fruit and vegetables.’

Some startling contrasts arise from the 2000 National Diet and Nutrition Survey of Young People aged 4 to 18 years. For example, by weight, boys eat nearly four times as many biscuits, and girls eat more than four times as much sweets and chocolate, as leafy green vegetables. The Survey found that children have intakes of saturated fat, sugar and salt which are considerably in excess of government health recommendations. Unfortunately for our children’s health, leafy greens just do not get the media coverage afforded to fatty, sugary and salty foods.

Poverty and dietary inequalities
Population estimates suggest that 9 per cent of boys and 13.5 per cent of girls in England are now overweight and the corresponding figures in Scotland are even higher (10 per cent for boys and 15.8 per cent for girls). [footnote 6] Levels of obesity in young children have been described as epidemic [footnote 7] and research demonstrates an association between deprivation and childhood obesity. [footnote 8]The limited incomes of some families encourages purchases of foods richer in energy (high in fat and sugar) to satisfy hunger. These foods are much cheaper per unit of energy than healthier, less fattening foods (like fruits and vegetables).[footnote 9]

There is strong evidence that eating a diet rich in fruit and vegetables can significantly reduce the risk of coronary heart disease and protect against cancer.[footnote 10] However, in a speech in June 2000, Suzi Leather, Deputy Chair of the Food Standards Agency stated, ‘One of the most pernicious aspects of the relationship between diet and poverty is that it is precisely the foods which are most protective of health which show the greatest inequalities in consumption. We are concerned that in terms of fruit and vegetables, these inequalities are increasing.’ The 1999 National Food Survey showed that low-income families eat half the fruit and vegetables of their higher income counterparts.[footnote 11]

Figures from the 1999 Family Expenditure Survey show that poor families spend 21 per cent of their income on food compared to an average of 17 per cent. [footnote 12] The relative high cost of healthy food disproportionately affects the budgets of low-income families – processed foods which are typically high in fat and/or sugar and/or salt are generally a cheap option. Households that cannot afford the cost of replacing foods which have been rejected by children are under particular pressure to buy those processed foods that children will eat, rather than experimenting with more costly dishes containing fresh ingredients.

Food advertising on television
In May 2001 Sustain published TV Dinners, [footnote 13] a report which compares the nature and extent of food advertising during commercial programmes aimed at children and adolescents with advertising during TV programming for an adult audience. TV Dinners presents national and international perspectives on advertising to children and calls for an end to marketing strategies which exploit children’s age or vulnerabilities. The key findings are presented in Table 3.

The study demonstrates that advertising during children’s programming presents a grossly imbalanced nutritional message, creating a conflict between the types of food promoted and national dietary recommendations. This is not a new finding and confirms previous research undertaken by the National Food Alliance (now Sustain) over a ten-year period. Sustain believes that the cumulative effect of this imbalance in advertising is to reinforce children’s consumption of less healthy foods and undermine the efforts of parents and health professionals to encourage healthier patterns of eating. In the context of scientific evidence that diets high in fats (especially saturated fats), sugar and salt have a detrimental effect on children’s current and future health, this selective targeting seems unjustifiable.

In TV Dinners Sustain sets out a list of recommendations directed towards the Government’s Food Standards Agency, the Independent Television Commission and the food industry. These include a call for legislation which protects children from excessive and unfair advertising and promotional activities, including a ban on the television advertising of unhealthy foods during periods when large numbers of young children are likely to be viewing.

Regulation of advertising in the UK
There are three agencies responsible for advertising regulation in Great Britain. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) regulates print advertising, cinema commercials and Internet advertisements (but not product claims made on companies’ home pages). Television advertisements are regulated by the Independent Television Commission (ITC) and radio advertisements by the Radio Authority (RA). At face value, the various codes of practice seem to be supportive, but they have inherent weaknesses.

For instance, the ASA’s adjudication process can last in some cases up to two years, during which time the company can continue to use misleading statements in its advertising. A good example is the recent Ribena Toothkind case, in which a false claim (that Ribena Toothkind did not encourage tooth decay) is still used on product packaging. The ASA can only prohibit further use of the same claim on print advertising. Not only has it no powers to impose penalties for past breaches, it cannot prevent misleading claims being used on product labels.

The ITC Code of Advertising Standards and Practice states, ‘advertising should not undermine progress towards national dietary improvement by misleading or confusing consumers or by setting bad examples, particularly to children.’ The Code also states that ‘advertisements must not encourage or condone excessive consumption of any food’ and that ‘advertisements must not disparage good dietary practice’. However, the ITC only applies the Code to individual advertisements, which by themselves may not contravene these specific provisions. The ITC has consistently failed to recognise any potential for the cumulative effect that the total advertising of unhealthy food to children is likely to have, and consequently its application of the Code fails to protect children from grossly imbalanced food advertising.

What the advertisers say
As might be expected, the advertising industry is very adept at presenting the case for advertising to children. It argues that children understand adverts better than parents think they do; that advertising exercises a right to commercial freedom of speech; that children’s commercial television would collapse without advertising income; that hardly anyone complains about advertisements which appear on television; that advertising educates children and even that advertising does not increase product category sales. These and other industry arguments are addressed in TV Dinners, where their superficial nature is exposed.

The bottom line is that if advertisements did not influence children, then the advertising industry would be wasting millions of pounds of manufacturers’ money. The scale of promotional activity targeted at children in the UK is enormous. The plain fact is that advertising works and industry knows it.

Advertising food products to children promotes profit rather than health. Sustain calls for statutory controls which prohibit the advertising and promotion of unhealthy foods to young children.

Charlie Powell is a Project Officer with responsibility for food labelling and marketing at Sustain, the Alliance for Better Food and Farming.

Footnotes
1. C Brown-Humes, 'Creative Business: advertising and children', Financial Times, 16 January 2001 [back to text]
2. CWS Ltd, Blackmail – the first in a series of inquiries into consumer concerns about the ethics of food production and advertising, CWS, 2000 [back to text]
3. Article can be found at: www.mothering.com/SpecialArticles/Issue97/whine.htm [back to text]
4. M Lewis and A Hill, 'Food Advertising on British Children's Television: a content analysis and experimental study with nine-year-olds', International Journal of Obesity, 22, 206-214, 1998 [back to text]
5. National Audit Office, Tackling Obesity in England, NAO, 2001 [back to text]
6. S Chinn and R Rona, 'Prevalence and Trends in Overweight and Obesity in Three Cross-sectional Studies of British Children, 1974-94', British Medical Journal, 322, 24-26, 2001 [back to text]
7. W Dietz, 'The Obesity Epidemic in Young Children', British Medical Journal, 322, 313-4, 2001 [back to text]
8. S Kinra, R Nelder and G Lewendon, 'Deprivation and Childhood Obesity: a cross-sectional study of 20,973 children in Plymouth, United Kingdom', Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 54, 456-460, 2000 [back to text]
9. W James, M Nelson and S Leather, 'Socio-economic Determinants of Health: the contribution of nutrition to inequalities in health', British Medical Journal, 314, 1545-9, 1997 [back to text]
10. M Gillman, 'Enjoy Your Fruits and Vegetables: eating fruit and vegetables protects against the common chronic diseases of adulthood', British Medical Journal, 313, 765-6, 1996 [back to text]
11. Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, National Food Survey 1999, The Stationery Office, 2000 [back to text]
12. Office of National Statistics, Family Expenditure Survey 1999, The Stationery Office, 1999 [back to text]
13. Sustain, TV Dinners: what's being served up by the advertisers, Sustain, 2001 [back to text]

Poverty 109, Summer 2001