The Downside of Gummy Bear & Juicy Burger Food Promotions

Television Promotions Influence Eating Habits of Children

Advertisements are any kids’ favorite as they are short, crisp, colorful and convey the required information through pictures mostly. As soon as an advertisement pops up in the television, our kids’ head turns towards the TV ignoring whatever work he/she might be involved in. This is a common scenario in most of our houses. But the latest WHO reports on television advertisements force us to reconsider our kid’s interest in digital ads.

The reports convey the depressing fact that childhood obesity is influenced by promotion of foods and beverages high in saturated fat, salt and free sugars (HFSS). Eating habits are a personal choice but sadly, these habits are affected by a child’s food environment and molded by food producers, retailers, food marketers and others associated with the food market to ensure that HFSS foods are available everywhere and at a cheaper rate than healthier foods. Parents and caretakers are often ignorant of these marketing strategies used in televisions and online media. But when the researchers showed these parents some of the HFSS-food marketing techniques that captures their kid’s interest, they were shocked and immediately expressed a desire to reduce it from the media.

Catchy Advertisements & Increasing Childhood Obesity
Children under 8 years of age are unaware of the persuasive intent of advertisements and promotions aimed at such children are exploitative. Children are gifted with the ability to recall ad contents and wish for certain products only after the very first exposure or after a few repetitive exposures. Parents too tend to purchase these products requested by their children to satisfy their wishes.

So how exactly do these advertisements increase obesity rates in children?

1. Research indicates that for every one-hour increase in viewing time, the intake of fast food, sugar-sweetened beverages and overall calories increases. An addition of 150 calories a day can result in excess weight gain in the kid.
2. Some other research has found that kids who tend to watch more than three hours of television per day are at a 50% greater risk to become obese than kids who restrict TV time to lesser than two hours.
3. The food and beverage advertisements influence the food preferences of children. No advertisement involves promotion of healthy fruits and vegetables but only mostly involve HFSS products which tend to increase calorie values. Although the F&B industry always promises to self-regulate their marketing strategies concentrating more on healthier foods like produce, whole grains, dairy and proteins, three out of four advertisements focused on children belong to the unhealthy categories that contribute to the obesity epidemic.
4. Almost 50 percent of the ads shown between children programs belong to the F&B category, mainly focusing on unhealthy food products. Very rarely do ads promote healthier foods or public service announcements.
5. Parents can control the viewing time of younger kids aged below 8 years. Children aged between 8 and 12 years are the ones exposed to a maximum number of ads as these kids neither listen to their parents nor have self-assessment capability to decide what is right and what is wrong. They are in the threshold of establishing food habits and whatever they see at this stage influence their food habits.

Restrictions on HFSS Products
Government should come forward to define “marketing directed at children” and also establish the legal age at which marketing to children could be permitted.
 
Actions to curb these unhealthy marketing strategies include:

• Developing appropriate sanction and penalty mechanisms.
• Implementing the existing legislation, regulation and regulatory industries.
• Make private Internet platforms to remove marketing of existing HFSS foods and regulate the marketing of future HFSS foods.
• Extend offline protection online.
• Devise cross-border international responses as online ads are visible to children residing in any part of the world.
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Growing children need a nutritional mix of foods from all food groups to grow into healthy adults. If you find it difficult to make your child understand the benefits of eating healthy foods, a professional in the nutrition industry is the right person to talk to your child about the nuances of eating nutritious food and the perks attached to it. Get in touch with professional nutritionists/dietitians at www.firsteatright.com to plan a healthy diet plan for your growing child.

Parents' Behavior Influence Kids' Choice of Foods

Parents Should Play Their Role Properly

1. Parents are the first role model to their children. Be an example of eating healthy food and doing physical exercise yourself. This has the greatest influence on your child than anything else.
2. Eat with your kids and try to make mealtimes a fun-filled pleasure experience for your loved ones.
3. Regulate your child’s time spend in watching TV, online programs and other media-related activities.
4. Monitor the programs viewed by your child who is under 8 years of age.

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