Fall 2004, Volume 9 Number 3

Table of Contents

Consuming Kids...
by Laura Grabe

One only has to visit a household where young children between the ages of 4 and 7 reside to see the impact media has on the kinds of foods being offered in the home and causing temper tantrums in the grocery store.  These days it’s not VISA that’s everywhere you want to be, it’s McDonald’s and this fast food behemoth will go where the children do, which explains why those prominent golden arches can be found plastered on everything from Barbie dolls to video games. Peruse your local grocery store shelves and you’ll find SpongeBob SquarePants Popsicles and Flintstones chicken nuggets.  Packaged in eye-catching colors with bubbly typefaces and silly cartoon characters, these products look like they belong in a toy store, not sold along side a box of Fiber One. 

The intense marketing efforts of food and soft drinks manufacturers contribute to obesity much in the same way smoking contributes to lung cancer. The difference here being that schools and the government go to great lengths to protect children from tobacco but don’t do much in the way of protecting them from non-nutritious foods.  Obesity rates are rising rapidly among children and adolescents and there is a direct link between the rise in marketing to those kids and the rise of the numbers on their scales.  A study done in 1997 indicated that children obtained half of their calories from added fat and sugar and that a measly 1% of those children ate diets that resembled anything close to what’s outlined in the Food Guide Pyramid. Another recent study done by Gerber, of the Gerber baby food conglomerate, said that 1/3 of kids ate no fruits or vegetables at all but instead preferred hot dogs, French fries and bacon.  It's obvious that to many children, a square meal is something that comes in box with a smiley face on it and not off a proper or practical nutrition guide.

According to research done at Texas A&M University, the amount of money big food makers like McDonald’s spent marketing to children and their parents rose from $12.5 billion in 1998 to $15 billion last year.  Kids are targeted because they influence a lot of the purchasing that goes on within a household--$188 billion in fact, according to recent studies done on children aged 4-12. While food marketers maintain that their ads help parents make nutritious and informed decisions, the kinds of foods they advertised sang a largely different tune.  In doing my own research watching after-school cartoons such as Pokemon and Barney, the commercial breakdown was as follows: 40% for sugary cereals, 30% for outrageous toys, 20% for unhealthy snacks and 10% for upcoming programming promotions.  What food marketers are doing is depending on parents to be too preoccupied and too exhausted to have the energy to deny a request for fast food meals or sugary, fat laden snack foods. 

So turn off the television, limit Internet access and monitor kid’s magazines.  Unfortunately, it’s not that easy.  You can run, but you can’t hide.  Big Food’s messages are everywhere.  We could develop the most comprehensive and detailed intervention program for kids but once those kids are sent back out into an environment with Britney Spears hawking Pepsi, severe cutbacks in physical education, vending machines in school hallways and Saturday morning cartoon marathons, these types of efforts are in a sense, totally worthless.  Change has to start on a political level. An effective primary step to take would be to impart some sort of ban on advertising in schools and to children in general. We ought to tax unhealthy foods the same way we taxed tobacco using the money gained to promote exercise and healthy foods.  We can start this effort by writing articles in local papers and publishing informative newsletters to raise awareness.  We might also try giving seminars for parents and teachers and by making nutrition and health classes a mandatory component of basic education so kids are able to make their own decisions.  Kids must learn that having a balanced diet does not mean having a chocolate donut in one hand and a crème filled in the other.  Whether it’s having Spongebob Squarepants promote broccoli or having apple the fruit, not the computer, sponsored lacrosse games, something has to be done because the problem is only getting bigger and clearly, so are the nation’s children.

1.) Young LR, Nestle M. "The Contribution of Expanding Portion Sizes to the U.S. Obesity Epidemic." American Journal of Public Health 2002, vol. 92, pp. 246-249

2.) American Academy of Pediatrics. Children, adolescents and television. Pediatrics 1990; 85:1119-1120

3.) Troiano RP, Flegal KM et al. Overweight prevalence and trends for children and adolescents.  Archive of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. 1995; 149:1058-1091

4) Munoz, KA. Food Intakes of Us Children and Adolescents compared with Recommendations.  Pediatrics 1997; 100:323-329

5.) Gerber “Feeding infants and toddlers study” 2003

6.) Lauro, PW. Coaxing the smile that sells. New York Times November 1, 1999

7.) McNeal JU. The Kids Market: Myths and Realities. Ithaca, NY: Paramount Publishing, 1999

8.) Kotz, K. Food advertisements during children’s Saturday morning TV programming: are they consistent with dietary recommendations? Journal American Dietetic Association 1994; 94:1296-1300

9.) Dietary Guidelines: http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/dga/dga95/cover.html

10.) Healthy People 2010: http://www.healthypeople.gov/

11.) Channel One: http://www.channelone.com/

Laura Grabe is a freelance writer who is currently getting a Masters in nutrition from NYU. She may be contacted at laura@oliverscloset.com.

© Copyright 1999, Kids Can Make A Difference