Cancer Council launches junk food ad guide
(For those misdirected from the Mumbrella email looking for The Hoopla story you can find it here)
The Cancer Council has launched a website accusing marketers of “spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year blitzing children with junk food marketing”.
The Fat Free TV Guide, rates and ranks what it claims are the best and worst programs on TV based on how much junk food is advertised per show.
According to the guide, AFL coverage on Ten is the worst culprit, followed by Saturday family movies on Nine, then The X Factor and Dancing with the Stars, both on Seven.
Hungry Jacks is a sponsor of the AFL so it would be safe to say they are going to advertise during the games.
Why is NO so hard for parents to say to their children? Instead of trying to be your kid’s friend and a cool parent, be a parent, they have friends at school. Parents need to stop blaming advertising for what they feed their kids. Junk food should be a treat not a steady diet because you couldn’t be arsed cooking anything healthy.
“Fat Free TV gives parents the power to make healthier choices about what their children watch…” have these parents ever thought about using this power to make healthier choices about what their kids eat?
Do we blame car manufacturers for drunk and speeding drivers because their product goes faster than the speed limit?
Walk through any supermarket and you’ll see fat parents with fat kids and a trolley loaded with chips, boxes of soft drink cans, chocolate, biscuits and heaps of other crap etc, etc. It’s all too easy to blame advertising, that way people don’t have to take responsibility for their actions. It’s not my fault, it’s the ad industry.
Maybe, and this is a crazy idea, have you ever thought about turning off the TV and taking the kids to the park. Agreed this would mean being a parent instead of letting your kids be raised by the TV but when they’re running around outside they can’t watch junk food advertising. It’ll get to the stage where the only thing you can advertise is a lettuce leaf.
As far as I can tell they aren’t advocating banning ads, just giving information about the TV stations and shows which show the most junk food ads. That way parents know straight off where to guide their children’s TV viewing. Studies have shown that children view advertising as truth; viewing non-stop junk food ads means they think junk food is okay. Look around you – people are fat – why is it wrong to want to do something about that as a society? After all, it’s societies problem, if the figures on what obesity costs society are to be believed. Why not start with children, whose bodies and minds are still developing, before it’s too late?
I agree with you Damo, 100%. But there is another side of me that feels that this site is a good thing. As it will force the junk food industry into creating healthier options. Mind you, I suspect that it will only appeal to the already health conscious parents anyway. A lot of the parents that whinge are the ones that won’t get off their fat arses and change their bad habits.
I concur with everything ‘Damo’ has written
Seriously, when did people ditch all responsibility for their own action? More to the point…when did that become OK?
It looks like a good site, but I agree with @Kia – we’re all responsible. Sure, parents are key, but there are many families out there who do believe marketing hype and don’t necessarily understand things like nutrition labels. The food industry also has responsibility – why should junk food be advertised during Saturday family movies?
Ever tried to battle three screaming kids who all want the same thing they’ve seen advertised and then spotted in the supermarket? It’s not easy and frankly, I don’t blame parents for giving in more than they think they should. They’re up against big spenders who produce advertising that is designed to appeal to their kids!
Obesity costs the taxpayer more than $58 billion a year. If that isn’t enough to spread the responsibility load, I don’t know what is.
Kia I accept and respect your viewpoint but there is a section on the website that encourages people to contact the TV networks and demand junk food free TV hence to me that constitutes advocating a ban. Also at a cursory glance it does not indicate what they classify as junk food. Is it just the big fast food outlets or do they also consider cereal brands loaded with sugar and promoted by Olympic athletes as junk food? What about the muesli bars parents put in kids lunches, fun size packs of biscuits, chocolate, ice cream, lollies. My question is where does the blame for fat kids stop with the manufacturers and start with the parents. Yes people are fat, through (mostly) choice, I choose to have salad and fruit for lunch, others choose two pies and chocolate milk. I just don’t buy extreme influence of junk food ads as an argument. Kids learn from parents. If a parent constantly swears around a child they will then emulate that behaviour, if a parent eats junk food so will the child. It’s also an easy way to shut them up. The idea of saying what shows have lots of junk food has some merit but the responsibility of fat people can’t just lie with the advertisers and TV stations.
I believe if you have a look through these pages http://www.fatfreetv.com.au/ab.....xplained-1, you’ll see they used Nutrient Profiling off the FSANZ website http://www.foodstandards.gov.a.....al3499.cfm
Even if you take all junk food advertising off the TV, there is still a wealth of misinformation that goes unmonitored.
See: weight loss companies (eg: Jenny Craig’s “points” system), low fat foods etc
These messages fill our minds with as much rubbish as junk food.