Junk food marketing to children campaign.

References: British Heart Foundation (2015) Briefing: Junk food marketing to children campaign. Available at: http://www.sustainweb.org/resources/files/other_docs/CFC_junk_food_marketing_to_children_joint_briefing_2014.pdf (Accessed: 27th August 2015).

Following on from a post I made earlier about 'Food marketing to children in the UK', I talked about how an article on Which? points out how there are loopholes in the system which enables advertisers to target children quite easily through TV advertisements. 

I have now come across a campaign which is trying to stop these loopholes. The British Heart Foundation teamed up with Children's food campaign are aiming to take action against these regulations.

They want to:

1. Move the responsibility for developing, monitoring, and evaluating advertising regulations to a body independent of the advertising industry.
2. Amend regulations to prevent TV advertisements for unhealthy food and drinks before 9pm.
3. Introduce consistent and effective regulations to protect under-16s across

all forms of media. The new regulations should:

• Include all marketing techniques
  
• Distinguish between healthy
  and unhealthy products using a validated nutrient profiling model
  
• Establish a means of determining whether a product or promotion is targeting children 
  

They say that Children should be protected from commercial interests that encourage them to eat foods that are high in saturated fat, salt and sugar. To improve their dietary health and life chances, they must be protected from the marketing of unhealthy food and drink.

They say that the changes they want to make would help protect children from junk food marketers and the pressure they create for them to choose unhealthy food and drinks, whilst still allowing the advertising and promotion of healthy products. 

I think that what they are attempting to do is a great idea, it shows that there are actually people out there trying to make a change. I hadn't heard about this campaign until digging quite a bit so I would like to see what efforts they are making to promote the campaign in order to get help from others. It's all well and good wanting to make a change, but I would like to see what actions they are taking in order to move forward.

Change4Life.

References: Crown Copyright (2015) Healthy eating and exercise can help you and your kids. Available at: http://www.nhs.uk/Change4Life/Pages/watch-change-for-life-videos.aspx (Accessed: 25th August 2015).

Change4Life. (2015) Change4Life helps keep families active and eat well[Advertisement]. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66tUPvDiHxk (Accessed: 25 June 2015).

One organisation which is doing it's best to raise awareness to both children and adults is 'Change4Life'. I've noticed a lot of their advertisements on posters and television too. They aim to help everyone from children to adults and have help available in many different ways through their website. 

Here is one of their advertisements:




This advertisement in particular explains what 'Change4Life' are trying to do. It also covers a lot of points which I have made up to now about how day to day lifestyle has changed a lot over the years and how it's becoming the 'norm' to stay in and watch TV or play computer games, instead of going outdoors and being active. I think what this organisation are doing is a great thing, it's raising awareness in a playful way of how children need to eat less of the bad stuff and exercise more. It relates to children and explains things in a way which everybody can understand.

Again, these people aren't trying to put companies out of business, they are simply trying to help raise awareness of what goes into our foods so that we can live healthier lifestyles and live longer!

Here are some of their posters, aimed at both children and adults too.

They are trying to make it fun for children to do more exercise by making it into a game. Again, they are making 'sugar swaps' into a game of 'What will you swap?' so that it's fun for children, as well as making their lifestyle healthier. It also aims some posters towards parents too, along with families which could bring families together as well as helping them all become healthier and live longer.

I think organisations like this are making a big impact and do get the attention of children. They are using the same tactics as the junk food industry by getting their promotional material out there on as many different platforms as possible which means they have just as much of a fighting chance as the food companies do. Having said that, some people may argue that they are just as bad as the food companies because they are advertising their products (although they are all free and helpful), and not letting children make their own minds up about foods. I don't see how what they are doing could be viewed in a negative way at all, they aren't naming brands or stating specific foods, they are simply aiming to achieve a healthier child and adult-hood for millions of people. 

Fighting The Junk Food Battle.

References: Guardian News and Media Limited (2015) Crisps: a very british habit. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/sep/01/crisps-british (Accessed: 25th August 2015).

We know that companies selling junk food will make their products seem amazing and as though they are 100% good for you, hiding all the facts about the bad stuff, that goes without saying. But surely there are people out there who are trying to raise awareness of the truth behind the foods. Surely there are people trying to make some kind of effort to explain to children that all is not what it seems when it comes to those colourful sweet packets with their favourite characters on the front?

Thinking back to when I was in High School, I remember a poster from the British Heart Foundation about how much oil goes into crisps. 

Before I saw this poster, I didn't even think twice about eating a packet of crisps or two per day. I didn't think about what went into them, or how they affected my body, I just ate them because they tasted good and were convenient! After seeing this poster up on the school walls, however, it really made me think twice about opting for crisps over a piece of fruit on my lunch break! Posters like this which use shock tactics might seem harsh to show to children but I think that sometimes, it's the only way to get the message across.

The guardian talks about the British Heart Foundations campaign:

Four years ago, the British Heart Foundation famously warned that half of all British children were, in effect, drinking five litres of cooking oil a year by virtue of their packet-a-day habit (crisps are a staple in 69% of lunchboxes). More alarmingly, nearly a fifth of British children apparently eat two packets a day. Soaring rates of obesity and Type 2 diabetes were, the foundation warned, the consequences.

People like the British Heart Foundation aren't in competition with crisp companies, they don't want to lose them business so that they can sell their own products. They are simply looking at the bigger picture of how the rates of obesity and diabetes are raising and this could be one factor which has a huge influence on it. I can't see any negatives from putting this campaign out there, it's simply showing children just how much fat is in the crisps and raising their knowledge of what goes into the foods they eat. It is also shocking parents into how much of an impact packing their children's packed-lunches with treats like crisps every day can have.