Today, the Rudd Center released a report to the public entitled “Cereal FACTS: Evaluating the nutrition quality and marketing of children's cereals.” The report is the culmination of a year’s worth of research funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), and its release coincides with the launch of our new website, www.CerealFacts.org.
The Rudd Center received a grant from RWJF in November of 2008 to study food marketing to children, as part of a larger goal to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic. Exposure to food marketing is strongly linked to this epidemic, as noted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and in the 2006 Institute of Medicine report. The objective of the F.A.C.T.S (Food Advertising to Children and Teens Score) project was to document the vast amount of marketing that is targeted to children, with the hope of improving the quality of food marketed to our children, and the overall food marketing landscape. We chose cereal first, because children are exposed to more advertising for it than any other packaged food category.
The actual findings of the FACTS project not only confirmed some suspicions about what was going on, but were also astounding. Marketers are heavily advertising their worst products to children. They are sneaky about it, often reaching our children when we’re not looking, undermining our authority by luring children with cartoons, games and toys to products we would otherwise avoid, and targeting children as young as 2 years old.
As a parent of a 2 year old, and as a Rudd Center staff member who has been intimately involved with this project for the last year, I’d like to speak about my personal experience.
In December of 2009, when I proudly began my position on the Marketing Team at Rudd, I was unaware of the ubiquitous nature of food marketing. I don’t think I ever really cared about, or paid any attention to it (although research shows it was still having an effect on me). It was there, in the background of my life, and wasn’t bothering me. I knew how to defend myself against advertising anyway.
Today, I find myself drowning in a sea of food marketing. It pops up as product placements in my favorite TV shows, tries to grab my attention while I’m surfing the internet, trolling facebook, using my cell phone, driving on the highway, picking out food for my family at the grocery store, etc. If I only had myself to worry about, I don’t think I would be as deeply affected as I am. But, now that my husband and I have a young daughter, I worry. I know that while she’s young I can be selective about what she is exposed to, and shield her from commercial television and the like. She’s not yet using the internet or a cell phone, but there will come a day when she will be able to do both. There will come a day when she will visit friend’s homes and watch their TVs, when she will be influenced by her peers, and there’s no escaping the reality that no matter what we do…she will be exposed to advertising for unhealthy food in a myriad of ways.
My old attitude, prior to Rudd, would have me thinking that as long as my husband and I present a positive influence and teach her about this in our home, then she’ll be okay. But my new attitude acknowledges that my influence only goes so far in a toxic food environment where the worst products are being aggressively marketed to children, in more inventive ways. Viral videos pop up on YouTube, where millions of children see and talk about them, and marketers even follow children around to learn about their preferences and enlist them to become ambassadors for their products.
So what have I learned from all of this? In a nutshell, there is only so much we, as parents, can control, even though many of us are doing our best. So much marketing to us and to our children falls under our radar, it’s impossible to safeguard ourselves against it all. I’ve learned that food companies, despite their pleas to us that they’ve added nutrients to their products, do not have our children’s best interest at heart. If they did, why would they push products like cereal made up of 40% sugar and try to lure children with animated characters and advergames? I’ve learned that companies have healthier products but they’re not marketing them to our children. They argue that they produce what children will eat, but I’ve learned that children will eat the better stuff too if it’s given to them (a study we did here at Yale confirmed that. Children ate low sugar cereals without complaining, and even enjoyed and ate more fruit with them).
So what can we do about this? Well, once you’ve become aware of what’s going on, if it bugs you as much as it does me, try to take ACTION against it. We’re doing our best here at the Rudd Center to create meaningful change in a flawed system, but parents can and should be a voice too. Talk to your friends and family about this and pass along our website address ( www.cerealfacts.org ) so that other people can learn about this as well. Be more vigilant about your children’s food environment. Be aware that marketing is affecting you and your children in ways you may not realize. If you’re so bold, get a petition going about food marketing to children or write letters to legislators and let them know how unhappy you are. Learn from marketers themselves and employ some of their own tactics for good, for example, create your own blog site or YouTube video about your thoughts on this topic that thousands or even millions of people could see.
Be your own ambassador for change!
Today, the Rudd Center released a report to the public entitled “Cereal FACTS: Evaluating the nutrition quality and marketing of children's cereals.” The report is the culmination of a year’s worth of research funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), and its release coincides with the launch of our new website, www.CerealFacts.org.
The Rudd Center received a grant from RWJF in November of 2008 to study food marketing to children, as part of a larger goal to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic. Exposure to food marketing is strongly linked to this epidemic, as noted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and in the 2006 Institute of Medicine report. The objective of the F.A.C.T.S (Food Advertising to Children and Teens Score) project was to document the vast amount of marketing that is targeted to children, with the hope of improving the quality of food marketed to our children, and the overall food marketing landscape. We chose cereal first, because children are exposed to more advertising for it than any other packaged food category.
The actual findings of the FACTS project not only confirmed some suspicions about what was going on, but were also astounding. Marketers are heavily advertising their worst products to children. They are sneaky about it, often reaching our children when we’re not looking, undermining our authority by luring children with cartoons, games and toys to products we would otherwise avoid, and targeting children as young as 2 years old.
As a parent of a 2 year old, and as a Rudd Center staff member who has been intimately involved with this project for the last year, I’d like to speak about my personal experience.
In December of 2009, when I proudly began my position on the Marketing Team at Rudd, I was unaware of the ubiquitous nature of food marketing. I don’t think I ever really cared about, or paid any attention to it (although research shows it was still having an effect on me). It was there, in the background of my life, and wasn’t bothering me. I knew how to defend myself against advertising anyway.
Today, I find myself drowning in a sea of food marketing. It pops up as product placements in my favorite TV shows, tries to grab my attention while I’m surfing the internet, trolling facebook, using my cell phone, driving on the highway, picking out food for my family at the grocery store, etc. If I only had myself to worry about, I don’t think I would be as deeply affected as I am. But, now that my husband and I have a young daughter, I worry. I know that while she’s young I can be selective about what she is exposed to, and shield her from commercial television and the like. She’s not yet using the internet or a cell phone, but there will come a day when she will be able to do both. There will come a day when she will visit friend’s homes and watch their TVs, when she will be influenced by her peers, and there’s no escaping the reality that no matter what we do…she will be exposed to advertising for unhealthy food in a myriad of ways.
My old attitude, prior to Rudd, would have me thinking that as long as my husband and I present a positive influence and teach her about this in our home, then she’ll be okay. But my new attitude acknowledges that my influence only goes so far in a toxic food environment where the worst products are being aggressively marketed to children, in more inventive ways. Viral videos pop up on YouTube, where millions of children see and talk about them, and marketers even follow children around to learn about their preferences and enlist them to become ambassadors for their products.
So what have I learned from all of this? In a nutshell, there is only so much we, as parents, can control, even though many of us are doing our best. So much marketing to us and to our children falls under our radar, it’s impossible to safeguard ourselves against it all. I’ve learned that food companies, despite their pleas to us that they’ve added nutrients to their products, do not have our children’s best interest at heart. If they did, why would they push products like cereal made up of 40% sugar and try to lure children with animated characters and advergames? I’ve learned that companies have healthier products but they’re not marketing them to our children. They argue that they produce what children will eat, but I’ve learned that children will eat the better stuff too if it’s given to them (a study we did here at Yale confirmed that. Children ate low sugar cereals without complaining, and even enjoyed and ate more fruit with them).
So what can we do about this? Well, once you’ve become aware of what’s going on, if it bugs you as much as it does me, try to take ACTION against it. We’re doing our best here at the Rudd Center to create meaningful change in a flawed system, but parents can and should be a voice too. Talk to your friends and family about this and pass along our website address ( www.cerealfacts.org ) so that other people can learn about this as well. Be more vigilant about your children’s food environment. Be aware that marketing is affecting you and your children in ways you may not realize. If you’re so bold, get a petition going about food marketing to children or write letters to legislators and let them know how unhappy you are. Learn from marketers themselves and employ some of their own tactics for good, for example, create your own blog site or YouTube video about your thoughts on this topic that thousands or even millions of people could see.
Be your own ambassador for change!