Companies That Market Junk Food To Children Turn To Product Placement

BOSTON - Companies that have pledged not to market unhealthy food and beverages directly to children may be turning to product placement on television shows instead of traditional ads to target youngsters, a new study showed.

This type of disguised advertising, including high exposure to sugary soft drinks on prime-time TV, is a major contributing factor to childhood obesity, according to the Yale University study released on Tuesday.

"It is a very subtle message that kids aren't likely to get," said Jennifer Harris, a co-author of the study and director of marketing initiatives at Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.

The Yale study aimed to quantify how many product placements appear on prime-time TV and also determine how many of those that kids actually see.

Researchers analyzed Nielsen media data from 2008 and found some 35,000 brand placements had appeared on prime-time television that year.

Kids tend to see about 14 traditional advertisements for food and beverages each day on television compared to one of these product placements, it said.

But children don't yet have the cognitive ability to understand that the popular soda, candy and snack brands they see on prime-time shows are a means of advertising.

"It is even more difficult for younger children to understand this is advertising and that it is persuading them to do something that isn't the best thing for them," Harris said.

Despite most major food companies pledging not to pay for unhealthy food ads in children's programing, brand appearances in prime-time shows and sportscasts viewed by a wide audience, including kids, is exposing them to these products anyway, Harris said.

Harris said Coca-Cola product placements on popular talent show American Idol was the most viewed brand. Children saw five times as many product placements as they did traditional, paid television commercials for Coca-Cola products.

Roughly one-third of children in the United States are overweight or obese, said Harris. Drinking sugar-sweetened beverages puts kids at greater risk for obesity, but also long-term health problems like diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure, she said.

The study will appear in the September issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

(Reporting by Lauren Keiper; Editing by Ros Krasny and Jerry Norton)

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[97034Leftofcenter]

10:31 PM on 08/02/2011

Yes, the parents are in control, but that doesn't mean that companies get a pass on pushing food that has NO nutritional value. We got rid of cigarette and hard alcohol ads, and they were at least aimed at peop,e who were old enough to know better. When diabetes, beauty, and heart disease are at all time highs putting a clamp on ads seems like a no brained. Oh yes, also tack on a tax to all full sugar drinks, excluding
100% fruit juices.

[Seven Teenatheart]

06:10 PM on 08/02/2011

The parent still makes the buying decisions. No matter where the ads are run, the parents are in control.

[geomcd]

04:03 PM on 08/02/2011

How many of these children go out and buy their own food? What exactly are parents for? There is only one word needed and it's a short one, NO. The parents are responsible for what the children eat, not the companies that sell the food. The government needs to stay out of things and let parents do the job of parenting.

[Seriously27]

03:45 PM on 08/02/2011

We can dismiss initiatives like this when parents of obese children are brought up on child abuse charges for feeding their children macdonalds every day rather than actually being permitted to sue macdonalds. Let's face it, we have proven that we as a society can not be trusted to regulate this so the government needs to step in. So let the right complain about bigger government and the liberals complain about restrictions on their freedom. But its clear that like many other issues we face in this country, everyone's instinct is to blame someone else when they know what they are doing is wrong.

[MrNCN]

03:30 PM on 08/02/2011

Right... the problem with childhood obesity (or adult for that matter) is the advertising. Don't blame the parents. Don't look at the lifestyle or the fast food eat-on-the-go-mentality; just blame the advertisers. The last time I checked, kids don't really carry cash and have to rely on Mom & Dad to go buy that can of coke and bag of chips.

[HerrMonk]

03:16 PM on 08/02/2011

America getting fat is a cultural problem, and it needs a cultural solution.

We should, as a culture be promoting healthy lifestyle choices and eating habits, and stigmatizing bad ones.

Instead we seem to glorify some of it in culture (drugs/alcohol/being able to eat a ton of junk without barfing), and insist on victimizing the rest (like the obese, who seem to believe they should be a protected class), while asking for more government regulation to save us from ourselves.

It's all wrong.

[GraphicMatt]

03:00 PM on 08/02/2011

As a child I was never allowed any sodas or sugary cereals. As an adult, I now have zero desire to drink any sodas or eat sugary cereals. As a result, I am not fat nor out of shape. Thanks mom.

[darquelourd]

02:46 PM on 08/02/2011

God Bless Capitalism .. we shall overcome!

[landonswan]

02:43 PM on 08/02/2011

Tea party guy here. I'll make a deal with the libs. How about if the government stays out of the bedroom, it also stays out of the kitchen?

[darquelourd]

02:47 PM on 08/02/2011

ps- please keep it out of my bathroom too. it gets kind of busy in there in the morning.

[HerrMonk]

03:13 PM on 08/02/2011

Sounds like a plan.

[Travis Lazar]

02:36 PM on 08/02/2011

How about we stop blaming the companies who make the products and start blaming the kids who eat them without reservation, the parents who let them without thought and the politicians who remove music and physical education from our schools in favor of self serving spending practices?

The problem isn't Coke, lets stop blaming the easy target and take some responsibility.

[darquelourd]

02:48 PM on 08/02/2011

fat boot camp or boot camp for fat people ... that's what we need ... oh, and universal national service for everyone when they turn 18

[Seriously27]

03:47 PM on 08/02/2011

Agree, but even in your statement you are blaming a third party (politicians). You should stick to blaming who is at fault: the parents and the children.

[Matthew Breslin]

02:33 PM on 08/02/2011

Parents need to get involved. Do not keep junk food in the house, and provide your kids with healthy snacking alternatives. Educate them on the pitfalls of sugar-heavy diets and make sure they are getting exercise. Teach them a helathy lifestyle while they are young. A soda or some chocolate once in a while isn't the end of the world, but kids need to learn the correlation between eating badly and looking and feeling badly.

[Bishop Coxcomb]

02:32 PM on 08/02/2011

As a child I always found product placement obvious and ineffective.

[darquelourd]

02:49 PM on 08/02/2011

yes, the whole Popeye spinach thing NEVER worked on me

[gx5000]

02:13 PM on 08/02/2011

I've always maintained that those who market to children deserve everything they get (negatively) in life.

[darquelourd]

02:49 PM on 08/02/2011

nine year olds smoking Virginia Slims toting assault rifles ... I love Freedom

[GraphicMatt]

02:57 PM on 08/02/2011

Oh man, I hope it's only the 9 year old girls smoking the Virginai Slims......that would just look so effemenate if it were a 9 year old boy.

[gx5000]

03:12 PM on 08/02/2011

I love kids being kids and playing in the sandbox...
Not looking in it for butts to roll a retread...ugh.

[sak]

02:09 PM on 08/02/2011

I hear a lot of talk about reducing health care costs. When do the junk food companies step up to the plate and do their part? Selling this garbage to our kids is the equivalent of selling poison. Look at the obesity rates among young people. Obesity causes diabetes. Diabetes results in severe consequences and expense. The poor, especially succumb to this fast food and they are the ones who end up on Medicaid and in the emergency rooms. Yes, you should be able to put out a product for sale, but when it is causing this much harm, perhaps these companies should take a second look.

I also think that the government has a vested interest in running ads explaining what good eating is all about and the consequences of not eating well. Look at the young people on the street! The elderly are in better shape that they are!

[frolucas]

02:03 PM on 08/02/2011

Kids have no money. Therefore they buy no junk food. Parents buy junk food for kids because today's parents do not know how to say no.

[darquelourd]

02:50 PM on 08/02/2011

actually, my five year old has a greater credit card limit that I do

[tomteboda]

06:08 PM on 08/02/2011

Aaand... whose fault is that?