Food marketing continues to promote food with lots of sugar and salt, fast foods and snacks, sugary drinks and sweets. In a‘persuasive and pervasive‘ way, it promotes foods that contribute to unhealthy diets, influences beliefs, attitudes and behaviors of children and adolescents. It is mostly concentrated in the places where children gather, whether they are schools, dedicated programs, and popular websites. For all that, it is necessary to limit it. That is the conclusion reached by a new WHO report on exposure to the power of food marketing. (1)
The power of food marketing
The paper points out that persuasive marketing techniques are evolving and using all the opportunities that digital platforms offer. Sponsorships by celebrities including from sports, promotional characters, and gift incentives are all techniques designed to favor interaction with digital marketing content and are particularly engaging for young audiences, reports the dossier.
The power of food marketing influences not only beliefs and attitudes toward food, not only eating behaviors but also has (concrete) consequences for the health of children and adolescents, for example, body mass index and dental caries.
The new report WHO on the scope, nature and effects of the marketing food is a review that includes 143 content analysis studies (studies that consider where the marketing food, how much there is, for which brands/products, and what creative content and techniques of marketing are used) and 36 consumer research studies, which explore individuals’ beliefs, attitudes, perceptions, and behavioral responses to the marketing food, published between 2009 and 2020. The review takes into account contemporary marketing confronted with the growth in Internet use, then food marketing conveyed by digital and social media.
Food marketing and children
The report “confirms that marketing of foods that contribute to unhealthy diets remains pervasive and persuasive and provides evidence that strengthens the case for action to limit the food marketing to which children are exposed.”
Long time The role of the marketing food on food preferences and consumption patterns, but despite calls to protect children, children continue to be exposed to the power and involvement of the FOOD MARKETING. Because this affects the places where children congregate, the television programs and the viewing times of young children. In short: he goes after them. And he presents them with a plate of foods they should avoid.
“Food marketing mainly promotes foods that contribute to unhealthy diets (such as “fast food,” sugary drinks, chocolate, and sweets) and uses a wide range of creative strategies that can appeal to a young audience (such as celebrity/sports endorsements, promotional characters, and games).”
Findings from consumer studies, the review further highlights, include positive associations between the frequency or level of exposure to food marketing and habitual consumption of marketed foods or less healthy foods. Which is to say: the more you are exposed to food marketing and promotional pressure, the more you tend to consume those advertised, less healthy foods that are offered.
Promotion of unhealthy diets
Regarding the food that food marketing offers to children and adolescents, the report specifies that “The most marketed food categories included fast food, sugary drinks, chocolate and sweets, salty/savory snacks, sweet baked goods and snacks, breakfast cereals, dairy products, and desserts .
Good evidence suggest that food marketing that promoted less healthy foods was prevalent in children’s gathering environments (e.g., schools, sports clubs) and, on television, more prevalent during typical children’s viewing times, during school vacations, on children’s channels or within children’s programs than during other times, channels or programming genres. Some evidence indicated social inequality in exposure to food marketing“.
Creative strategies to reach the little ones
The power of food marketing is pervasive and uses a wide range of creative strategies to appeal to young audiences. Here falls a long list that includes celebrity and sports sponsorships, promotional characters, gifts and incentives, contests, games, new design, animation and special effects, persuasive appeals, health and nutrition claims, health claims, and various other engagement techniques. A “firepower,” it would be said, with an additional detail: the particular vehemence with which this effort is intended to reach especially the target audience of young children.
“Some studies suggest that the use of such strategies were more frequent or extensive in food marketing aimed at children than in marketing aimed at adults.”
Marketing strategies that target children have been used more frequently to promote food that contributes to an unhealthy diet, compared to promoting healthier products, and during school vacations, compared to other days. In terms of impact on dietary behavior and health, “studies have reported significant positive associations between frequency of food advertising for particular products or level of exposure to food marketing and habitual consumption of the advertised or less healthy foods.” Translation: firepower works.
Active engagement of young people, the kind you have on social by liking, sharing, watching branded videos, commenting on posts, is also associated with greater impact on consumption of that food. Studies that looked at food attitudes, beliefs, knowledge and norms, WHO again highlights, found that most children were familiar with food brands and could recognize advertised food products when they were at the supermarket. Target achieved.
Sabrina Bergamini
Notes
(1) WHO. Exposure and power of food marketing and its associations with food-related attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors: a narrative review https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240041783
See also the previous article Dario Dongo, Sabrina Bergamini. Climate, predatory marketing, and children’s health. Unicef report. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 21.2.20 https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/consum-attori/clima-marketing-predatorio-e-salute-dei-bambini-rapporto-unicef
Journalist. Consumption, rights, nutrition, social, environment. Head of Consumers Help. She collaborated with ResetDOC, Il Riformista, La Nuova Ecologia, IMGPress.
