Thinking of the Children: Junk Food Ads

An SMH report informs that parents are able to vote for the worst junk food ads - the ones with toys and fun music that coax kids into wanting to eat stuff that's bad for them. It is The Children's TV Food Advertising Awards, which are held annually by lobby group The Parents Jury that wants to raise awareness about the persuasion in advertising, brought on children during their TV shows.

There are even different award categories in which people can vote for. The Pester Power Award is for the ads that make children annoy their parents and nag for the product they’ve seen on TV. Parents usually just give in to avoid an argument, which gives rise to the power of the pestering children.

American Cheetos - similar to Australia's twisties. I bet the packaging looks more appealing than the food itself

There is also the Smoke and Mirrors Award, that the SMH says are “for ads that cleverly disguise the low nutritional value of food to give the impression they are healthier than they really are.” The awards also include a Parents' Choice category, to promote advertisements that endorse healthy food to children in an appealing way.

Nutritionist Kathy Chapman, from the Cancer Council NSW notes that "This year's nominated advertisements use a variety of tactics including vilifying fresh fruit, giveaways, movie tie ins, computer simulations, and misleading info to hook parents in."

The Parents Jury wants a complete ban on TV advertisements that feature junk food during children's peak viewing times. They object, and sensibly so, to the profit-seeking companies that seem to be more important than the health of children today.

Kids don’t understand their parents’ reasoning when they aren’t alllowed to have a certain item of junk food. The advertising messes with their minds, and the kids come up with rebuttals such as “but the ad says it's healthy; it doesn't have preservatives or fat; if you buy this product then we can win this, which saves you buying it for us”, a Parents Jury member said.

I think that the worst thing is that the kids don’t have any idea what they’re being subjected to. They know that the words ‘fat’ and ‘preservatives’ are bad for you but can be easily influenced by advertisements because they are just so tricky and manipulative (not to mention TV is their best friend, and not much can divert their attention from it and it’s powerful influence!). No doubt advertising companies have learned the best ways of how to get kids to enjoy and pay attention to advertisements – and when it’s crunch time, to hassle their parents at the supermarket trolley and beg for a particular product.

It’s obvious that this effect of advertising on kids is only a relatively recent thing. For starters, in the old days there wasn’t much you could buy from the supermarket (if it even existed) that was as harmful as all the modern whiz-bang processed foods like those vomit-worthy stringy cheese sticks and sugar loaded and virtually fruit-less rollups. Also, nowadays since kids spend many hours of their days watching the box, the TV has become a teacher and companion that kids listen to and can be persuaded by.

The only way to stop their innocent minds from getting sucked in by ads is to just not show the ads when they are watching TV - at peak children-viewing times. Adults (should be) old and wise enough to make their own decisions.