Should Junk Food Advertising Be Banned In Australia - Essay Example

Should junk food advertising (advertising food with high sugar/fat/salt content) be banned in Australia? TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary 3 1. Introduction 3 2. Discussion 4 2.1. Background 4 2.3. Example 5 2.4. Effects 5 2.5. Advertising and Health 6 2.6 Australian Regulation 7 3. Conclusion 8 4. Recommendations 9 5. References 10 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The effect of advertising particularly of junk food marketing has been an important issue in regard to the wider discourse of the relationship of children and the media and its impact on their health. Strong evidence points to its direct relationship with the rising trend of children obesity in Australia. This is one of the fundamental reasons outlined by this paper why junk food advertising targeted towards children should be banned. Besides contributing to the risk in children’s health, junk food advertising also exploits children as majority of these marketing tools take advantage of children’s impressionable minds. 1. INTRODUCTION The controversy in regard to advertising food is anchored on two main issues. The first is when food marketing presents false and misleading claims and the second is when it contributes to the increasing health problem among its target audience. The latter is particularly fundamental in the call for the advertising ban of junk foods targeted towards children. According to Hayes and Laudan (2008), marketing is held to be partly responsible for the worsening health problems especially of children because so much money is being spent on food advertising that pander unhealthful foods. (682) This report would argue in favor of the advertising ban on junk foods targeted towards children in Australia based on one important argument: Children are not yet capable of making wise food choices and that they cannot distinguish what is information from pure sales pitch. This is the reason why marketing junk food to children 2. DISCUSSION 2.1 Background The current trend in junk food advertising targeted towards children has been summarized by Hayes and Laudan. To quote: About $3 billion is spent annually on designing packaging specifically aimed at children, and lines of food have been developed to appeal specifically to children. Such foods often contain a lot of added sugar and coloring. Food companies have created friendly mascots, built playgrounds in restaurants, included toys in their products, and developed Web sites and online games. In addition, child psychologists have been enlisted to help craft commercial messages that appeal to children’s desire to have fun, feel independent or be popular. (682)\ In a report released by the Consumer International Australia, along with the US and the UK had the largest number of food advertisements, with an average of 10 to 12 per hour. (684) The attention, as demonstrated by the above evidences, on children as a target market is driven by the fact that children could prove to be a lucrative market. Research on spending patterns as documented by Paul Foxman (2004), for instance, reveals that children under twelve years old spend more than $11 billion of their own money and that they also influence family spending decisions worth another $165 billion on food, household items, vacations, and even family car. (125) According to Lawrence Grossberg (2006), the analyses of the products advertised to children have shown that the majority of advertising during children’s programs is for food products, majority of which are ads for cereals, candy, snack food and fast food restaurants – that is, mostly for products high in sugar and fat. (331) 2.2 Example An example of advertising targeted towards children is those shown using trade characters. This is reportedly very effective as found by Richard Mizerski (1995) in his study. He reported that accurate recognition of a product advertised via a spokes character is typically around 86 percent, confirming several other research findings reporting that children’s liking of the advertised product correlated very strongly with recognition. (59-70) 2.3 Effects The psychological vulnerability of children when faced with advertising and marketing n general has been explained clearly by Bruce Keillor (2007). He argued that children must possess at least two requisite cognitive skills in order to be capable of processing marketing and advertising communications: First, children must be able to distinguish between commercial and noncommercial content; second, they must be able to identify the persuasive intent inherent in advertising and use this knowledge to interpret marketing message. Keillor stressed; The first of these cognitive capacity requirements is usually evident in children 5 years of age, but the second is typically not achieved until at least 8 years of age (and not employed without prompting from parents or other adults until later than approximately 12 years of age). Therefore, young consumers are considered particularly vulnerable. (4-5) The body of literature on the subject generally agrees to this finding underscoring how it advertising dispenses powerful effects on the consumer behavior of young children and adolescents. These effects, wrote Raymond Preiss, are powerful because a) commercials directed to children use powerful multimedia techniques to attract attention, and, b) children have less ability to discriminate commercials and programs, and c) children have not developed adult cynicism about advertising. (170-171) 2.4 Advertising and Health Problems In the comparison of international obesity trends, the incidence is highest in countries where advertising on children’s television programs is least regulated – in Australia, US and the UK and that that obesity trend in countries that ban junk food advertising such as Sweden are post negative growth. (Paxon, 22) The reason for this is simple. Since studies have established that children are more prone to be influenced by junk food advertising, there is no escaping on acting on the majority of commercials that bombard children shows, 80 percent of which offer calorie-dense treats. (Shell 2003, p. 227) A case in point is the public television program Teletubbies targeted towards the preschool set in Britain and syndicated in several countries. This program is sponsored by McDonald’s and once the program is aired, majority of the commercials show Ronald McDonald and a number of other colorful trade characters encouraging viewers to eat unhealthy foods. As with Teletubbies, in most of other Australian children’s programs, one finds heavy marketing of energy-dense foods and beverages to children and Kopelman, Katerson and Dietz (2005) stated that this has been implicated as a causal factor in increasing obesity with the fat, sugar and energy contents of foods advertised are extremely high compared with their daily needs. (466) 2.5 Australian Regulation The Australian obesity prevention action plan is one of the initiatives that advocate stricter national regulations on food advertising aimed at children and have proposed a ban on junk food marketing during children’s television viewing time. On the part of the government, Australian television is regulated through a combination of legislation and self-regulation with specific focus on statutory regulation. The Children’s Television Standards under the Australian Broadcasting Authority is the agency responsible for the implementation of statutory regulations on advertising towards children in Australia. Particularly, it is responsible for the limitations being imposed and the regulations on advertising according to program classification. Current statutes include: Advertisements aired during programs directed at preschool children (‘P’ programs) are prohibited. Advertisements broadcast during programs directed at primary school-aged children (‘C’ programs) are limited to 5 minutes every 30 minutes. The limitation of repetition advertisements and those featuring children’s television personalities. (Institute of Medicine 2006, 360) 3. Conclusion It is wrong to say that banning junk food advertising violates free market or the food manufacturer’s right to sell and market their products or that it violates the freedom of the press or the media. Like other dimensions of commerce, advertising and marketing is subject to regulation and that this is particularly true when we talk about those that reach children. Presently, due to the effectiveness of junk food advertising, about 50 countries now enforce ban on food advertisements. (Hayes and Laudan, 684) As stated elsewhere in this paper, those who have banned junk food advertising have already posted declining incidence of children obesity. There is a strong legal ground in banning junk food advertising. First, and the most important, is that this kind of food marketing is selling harmful food products to a deeply impressionable audience. Children are still not capable of discerning what is good from bad or what is true from what is misleading information that is why they need to be protected. This also underscores how junk food advertising is ethically questionable in its approach to persuade children to buy their products. As cited elsewhere in this paper, children particularly those below 12 years of age are not yet psychologically capable to understand advertising messages that are harmfully influencing their behaviors. The Australian regulation on advertising on children’s program is already a testament to these arguments. There is only a need to impose stricter legislation because apparently, providing guidelines and waiting for food manufacturers to regulate their own ranks proves inutile in addressing the problem. 4. Recommendations An unconditional ban must be enforced on junk food advertising targeting Australian children. As this report has outlined, such kind of food marketing contributes to the worsening health problem of children as experienced not only in the Australian setting but the world over. It is within the public’s interest to encourage children’s advertising that promote healthy diet and that if it would not be possible for the Australian Parliament to pass legislations that would force this emphasis on food manufacturers, then legislations should be enacted banning junk food advertising aimed at children. Additional policies should also be considered. These include the creation of industry incentives and support for agricultural subsidies to produce and market healthy food products. This is expected to contribute in the reduction of the demand for unhealthy foods such as junk foods. References Foxman, Paul. 2004. The Worried Child: Recognizing Anxiety in Children and Helping Them Heal. Hunter House. Grossberg, Lawrence. 2006. Mediamaking: mass media in a popular culture. London: SAGE. Hayes, Dayle and Lauda, Rachel. 2008. Food and Nutrition. Marshall Cavendish. Keillor, Bruce. 2007. Marketing in the 21st Century: Integrated marketing communication. Greenwood Publishing Group. Kopelman, Peter, Cateson, Ian and Dietz, William. 2005. Clinical obesity in adults and children. Wiley-Blackwell. Mizerski, Richard. 1995. "The Relationship between Cartoon Trade Character Recognition and Attitude toward Product Category in Young Children," Journal of Marketing 59: 58-70. Paxon, Christina. 2006. Childhood obesity. Brookings Institution Press. Preiss, Raymond. 2007. Mass media effects research: advances through meta-analysis. London: Routledge. Shell, Ellen. 2003. The Hungry Gene: The Inside Story of the Obesity Industry. Grove Press. US Institute of Medicine. 2006. Food marketing to children and youth: threat or opportunity? J. Michael McGinnis, Jennifer Appleton Gootman, Vivica I. Kraak (Eds.) National Academies Press. Read More