Food and Beverage Marketing to Children and Youth: Trends and Issues

Using Marketing Muscle to Sell Fat: The Rise of Obesity in the Modern Economy

“…Reduction in school funding since the 1970s has left schools "hungry for business" in the form of in-school advertising and sales deals (76). As a result, schools have been more willing to countenance advertising and nonschool sales of food on the premises, called "competitive foods," most of which are of poor nutritional quality (28).…”

“…As a result, schools have been more willing to countenance advertising and nonschool sales of food on the premises, called "competitive foods," most of which are of poor nutritional quality (28). The 1980s saw the beginnings of a significant expansion of commercial food availability in schools, and the trend intensified in the 1990s, with a 13-fold increase in the reported number of exclusive sales rights agreements (76). By the year 2000, an estimated one-quarter of middle schools and high schools sold brand-name fast foods (3).…”

“…These disparate forms of promotion are difficult to quantify in a single metric, but the main point is the large increase in school-based marketing, as in the larger society. One source, summarizing the literature, says that commercialization in schools "has mushroomed and morphed into new dimensions" since about 1990 (76).…”

“…Many jurisdictions have laws restricting various forms of commercialism in schools, including the promotion and sales of obesogenic foods (76). Yet these restrictions have been fought at every turn by the food industry and are typically implemented in watered-down form, when they are implemented at all (76).…”

Teaching Young Children to be Sophisticated Media Consumers

“…In recent years there has been a dramatic increase in childhood obesity (Krebs & Jacobson, 2003;Ogden et al, 2006); the prevalence of food-related non-nutritious advertising on children's television is strongly linked to this increase (e.g., Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2003a;Dietz, 1990;Horgen, Choate, & Brownell, 2001;McGinnis, Gootman, & Kraak, 2006;Palmer & Carpenter, 2006;Strasburger, 2001;Troiano & Flegal, 1998). Williams, Achterberg, & Sylvester (1993) suggest that food marketing is even more dangerous an influence on health than cigarette and alcohol advertising particularly because eating habits formed in childhood often last throughout life (Jacobson & Maxwell, 1994).…”