Is Food Industry Self Regulation Really Working?
Posted by Lisa in Marketing to Kids, tags: big food, food, junk food, Marketing to Kids, usSydney’s Morning Herald reported this week that members of the Australian Food and Grocery Council have agreed to self-regulate and commit to responsible marketing to kids under 12.
The cereal aisle | Photo by Walsh on Flickr
It’s certainly encouraging that Australian parents and health groups pushed and got a commitment from the AFGC with no support from Australia’s government. In August, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) released reports claiming there was little evidence of a link between junk food advertising and obesity levels in children.
Perhaps Australians will benefit from big food self regulation, but I don’t think it’s worked out so well in the US. Since 2005, US food manufacturers including Kraft, Kellogg’s, McDonald’s and General Mills have been pledging to clean up their act regarding advertising poor nutritional choices to children. Honestly, I have not noticed a difference. Have you?
Self-regulation is completely at the convenience of big food. They have pledged change in order to avoid lawsuits and bad publicity, but there’s no legistation with teeth to make sure those promises are fulfilled. The FTC reports that in 2006, big food spent $1.6 billion marketing products to kids 17 and under. While the FTC and big food patted themselves on the back for the success of self-regulation, child advocacy groups like CCFC were not so impressed.
These same companies have agreed not to advertise in elementary schools, yet in the last year Ronald McDonald has shown up at both my local elementary and preschool. Also in the last year, McDonald’s was blasted for promoting Happy Meals on school report cards.
Kellogg’s has pledged not to advertise cereals with more than 12 grams of sugar when the audience is primarily under the age of 12. So what did they do? They reformulated their products to have 12 grams of sugar, continued with their marketing plans and as a bonus started putting meaningless health claims like “lower sugar” on the box to win over moms. But who decided that 12 grams of sugar is good for kids? They did. Interestingly, a recent Consumer Reports study of cereals classified cereal with 4 grams of sugar or less as healthy.
So how do they get away with it?
We let them. We give in to our kids’ plea to buy the cereal positioned at kid-eye level with the colorful character on the box. Clearly self-regulation of the food industry is not in the best interest of our children. But here’s what I think. Moms have more power than we realize. The weapon that makes big food tremble is our wallets. We can leave the junk food on the shelves. We can also support groups like Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) who help amplify our voices and influence legislation.
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