Question

how does junk food relay on marketing

Answer 1

Junk food advertising and marketing works! Children are constantly bombarded with junk food marketing, both through traditional forms of advertising such as television and billboards, along with new techniques such as internet, sponsorship and in-store promotion. According to the Department of Health, 838million was spent on food and drink advertising in the UK in 2007. Why is this important? Junk food marketing contradicts all the messages about healthy eating children receive, undermining their ability to choose better food and their parents' efforts to feed them healthily. Given the crisis in children's diet, it is vitally important that children are persuaded to eat more healthily, not less healthily due to being bombarded by junk food advertising. Studies by the Food Standards Agency and others into the effects of junk food marketing shows that it works directly by influencing children's food preferences, and also more powerfully indirectly by influencing what family and friends consider to be a 'normal' diet. Food advertising and marketing, which is almost always for unhealthy products, plays an important role in encouraging unhealthy eating habits in children, which are likely to continue into adulthood. According to a report by Compass, 70% of three year olds recognise the McDonalds symbol but only half of them know their own surname. In addition, some advertisers take advantage of children's fears, for example by implying that they will be more popular, sporty or happier if they consume the advertised products. The use of sports stars to promote unhealthy products, such as Wayne Rooney's promotion for Coca-Cola, is a good example of this. It has been proven that advertisements affect food choices at both brand and category level, so a Burger King burger advert is likely not only to make a person more likely to buy a branded Burger King burger over another brand, but also more likely to buy a burger per se. We believe it is wrong to allow the food industry to undermine the efforts of parents who are trying hard to persuade children to change their eating habits by advertising unhealthy products for financial gain.