Food for Thought - A Draft Code for Advertising Food & Drink to Children

Sheena Horgan tells us her thoughts on a possible code for restricting advertising of "unhealthy" food products to children.

The food & drink industry’s in the media spotlight at the moment, for two reasons:  Firstly, it’s being referred to as the somewhat salvation of the Irish economy, it being a sector that is doing well despite the recession.  And secondly, the Broadcast Authority of Ireland (www.bai.ie) has just released a draft code that looks to restrict the advertising of ‘unhealthy’ food products to children.

There’s a lot to this code and to its history, so it’s worth looking into this on the BAI website.  But for a summary version, and my own take on it, read on:-

The code is a draft, so it’s open to public consultation ie industry, the general public and all interested parties are able to submit their views.  In essence it proposes to limit the advertising of food & drink products that are high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS), to 1 in 4 advertisements across the broadcasting day.  The proposal is specifically to ban these HFSS ads during kids’ programming up to 6pm, and possibly extending this to 9pm.  The code also wants to adopt the UK’s nutrient profiling system as a means to classify what products are HFSS, and this system will inevitably mean cheese will be categorized as HFSS.

A few quick reality checks on all of this:

1. Irish children do watch a lot of TV, but 2/3 of this is non-Irish TV that will not be affected by this code
2. The hours where TV is “most watched” is 6-9pm, followed closely by 9pm-midnight.  So a pre 6pm watershed will have little effect and even a 9pm watershed will only increase this a tad
3. The ban will be on ads during children’s programming, so the most viewed programmes watched by children ie X Factor, Coronation St etc., will not be included
4. As Irish children have a worryingly poor dairy intake, reducing the promotion of these products including cheese, will not necessarily be a good thing

All this makes me sound as though I see the code as pretty pointless, and on the face of these facts I would, EXCEPT that I do believe in the spirit of the code.  I do believe that we need to seriously look at and curtail our children’s exposure to advertising.  But I mean advertising in its broadest sense.  The ubiquity of marketing and advertising in Irish society means we must consider more than just television. 

Food & drink marketing is omni present:-

• In the supermarkets manufacturers use favourite kids characters like Bart Simpson and teletubbies to sell beans and yoghurts. 
• Online websites like www.Fanta.ie are clearly aimed at a young audience, and encourage children to download, despite downloading being an online activity kids should be discouraged from doing.  (The site also carries limited product information which highlights a ‘healthy’ message - 4% juice which is in fact less than a 5ml teaspoon for 100ml bottle! 
• Marketing has also entered the school gates with token collection schemes and even as recently reported in the Sunday Times, incentive schemes for teachers to sell popcorn. 
• Along with using popular characters and celebrity endorsement, toys are also used to lure our children into buying the associated products.
• And brand extensions now even include an crisp-themed outdoor theme park. 

So if restricting television advertising is a first step towards encouraging brands review their full marketing activities, then this code serves a good purpose.   Because as I have found in my 8 years of writing, researching  and debating this topic, we have a fundamental obstacle to address first – industry’s mindset.  Industry must genuinely embrace its responsibilities, acknowledge the vulnerability of children, and behave ethically ie where a company does make unhealthy products , it must not however implicitly promote them as being in any way healthy, and more importantly it must not overly promote them to encourage consumption beyond a ‘treat’.

However, if this revised code is instead, a mere stand alone box-ticking exercise, then I return to my long professed preference for industry and politicians to help empower and educate both children and parents regarding marketing and nutrition.  Because an empowered consumer can make informed choices. 

And empowerment will only come from engagement.  This is what the Positive Childhood Campaign is all about.  Giving parents a voice and an opportunity to discuss the issues regarding our children.  This code will affect us, so I encourage you to find out about it, chat about it, and where you have a view, shout about it.  Together we will be heard :)

Sheena

P.S. Excellent presentation given at the Mulcahy Lecture by Sue Davies of Which?