Health policy analyst Jennifer Doggett responds to a recent Croakey post calling for an end to junk food advertising to children.
Jennifer Doggett writes:
Public health advocates, such as the Obesity Policy Coalition, (OPC) argue that the link between food advertising and children’s food choices supports a junk food ad ban.
For example, the OPC recently stated that “Implementation of [a junk food ad ban] would be a hugely important step toward decreasing children’s exposure to junk food marketing and reducing the burden of obesity in this country.”
However, these claims ignore crucial evidence from three comprehensive reviews of the impact of junk food advertising on children (World Health Organisation 2009, Ofcom 2006 and the US Institute of Medicine 2006) which have failed to find evidence that an advertising ban has any positive impact on children’s overall health and well-being.
In fact, these research reviews found that advertising has only modest and short-term effects on children’s food choices and that there is little evidence for a causal link between junk food advertising and obesity.
For example Ofcom, the independent regulator of communications industries in the UK found that:
Although experiments identify causal relations between advertising and food choice, it remains unclear how these operate along side the complex conditions of daily life at home and school……In both experimental and survey studies, the measured effects of advertising/television on food choices are small. Estimates vary, but some suggest that such exposure accounts for some 2% of the variation in food choice/obesity. Ofcom 2006
Similarly, the report into food marketing to children conducted by the US Institute of Medicine concluded that:
The association between adiposity and exposure to television advertising remains….but the research does not convincingly rule out other possible explanations for the association; therefore, current evidence is not sufficient to arrive at any finding about a causal relationship from television advertising to adiposity. Institute of Medicine 2006
Of course, a lack of evidence for a link between junk food advertising and obesity in children is not the same as positive evidence for no link.
But equally, the failure of numerous research studies to establish a causal relationship between food advertising and health should not be dismissed as insignificant simply because it is used by some groups to support their case against an advertising ban.
It is possible that opponents of this policy, such as the Australian Food and Grocery Council, are both self-interested and correct to argue that a ban is unlikely to deliver any measurable health benefits to children.
This outcome would occur if there are negative impacts of the ad ban which off-set any positive impact – resulting in no net health gain overall.
For example, in response to an ad ban, parents may relax restrictions on TV watching knowing that their children will no longer be exposed to junk food ads. If this results in children watching more television overall they may become fatter, regardless of their reduced exposure to food advertising (there is a relationship between the amount of television watched and obesity, independent of the impact of advertising).
It is also possible that after enacting a ban, governments may feel they have done enough to combat childhood obesity and therefore be less likely than other jurisdictions to put resources into other (potentially more effective) child-targeted health promotion strategies..
Alternatively, television networks, having lost the political battle on junk food ads, may change their current practice of including health-promoting food messages within their programming (there is good evidence that children get both good and bad messages about food from television) as they have nothing left to gain politically from such measures.
These (and other) potential ‘side-effects’ of a junk food advertising ban are not in themselves arguments against the introduction of this policy. However, they illustrate the need for policy making in this area to reflect the complex relationship between individual and environmental factors that work together to influence health behaviours.
By misrepresenting and over-simplifying the influence of junk food advertising, public health advocates are detracting, rather than contributing, to the challenging task of improving the future health of Australian children.
its not the kids you have to get the message through to, its the parents. they are the ones buying the junk food for the kids
Yeah Jen, and there’s no causal relationship between smoking and cancer either. Or Russian Roulette and death. But establishing a causal relationship shouldn’t stop us from acting on a strong correlation.
I am of the belief that parents need to be the first port of call in preventing childhood obesity. But hey, if ads marketing to kids (and the resulting “MUM CAN I GET THIS!!!!?” at the Supermarket or “DAD CAN WE STOP FOR MACCAS AND A HAPPY MEAL TOY PLEEEEEAAAAASSE!????”) are influencing 10% of parents’ behaviour, leading them to buy the wrong products too often… bring on stronger legislation. No-one loses except the people who make unhealthy food.
We can tackle it on a number of fronts, too. I don’t see why parental education can’t be the #1 priority while simultaneously restricting advertising.
OK Shooba,
So what should be banned and what should be promoted, by the public health lobby, given you seem so sure of yourself? Tell me which foods are bad and what is your evidence base for so asserting?
For instance, are all the “”heart tick” foods on the AHF www site to be given the blessing of the public health lobby, given the AHF are obviously on your team? Or should one look at them a little more closely and see that a goodly proportion of them have substituted sugar in it’s various forms for saturated fat. Should one look at the contradictions between the evidence papers on the same web site and the products which are given the “heart tick”?
My suggestion is that it might be better to educate us punters to make our own educated choices, rather than making simplistic top down assertions which are not evidence based, but are based upon so called “common sense”, which is often nothing more than public health lobby group think. Yearning for an earlier simpler time when the public health lobby could do no wrong in the anti-tobacco campaign assists no-one. Sorting out the evidence base before making gross generalisations, is in everyone’s interests.
@hptns
Better minds than mine can come up with nutritional “cutoffs.” I doubt, however, they’d be based on the AHF’s dubious criteria for the Tick.
From what I’ve read (From the World Health Organization), there is evidence to suggest that reducing the number of ads a kid sees for Maccas will have an impact on how much Maccas they want/get.
Given the stakes, I would say advertising restrictions are worth a punt, wouldn’t you? After all, as I said earlier… who loses in this situation? Are kids missing out on a formative experience if they can’t see the latest ad for KFC? Nope.
And, in yet another parallel with smoking… it seems that if the junk food companies invest so heavily in advertising to kids and they’re up in arms about restrictions, then they probably know restrictions will impact their sales. Which, considering the nutritional voids they sell, is precisely the point.
But people will always think “pffft, advertising doesn’t affect my buying/eating habits” while at the same time, the execs in boardrooms look at the chart showing the sales spike that lines up perfectly with the dates of their latest round of TVCs.
But yeah, overall I’d think parental responsibility comes first and foremost. Saying no to kids isn’t that difficult.
i know what can be restricted, anything that can be purchased at a drive-through…think about it i have no scientific evedence only my own observations over the last 32 years of being in the food trade. the first drive through in australia was in 1980 at auburn and since the explosion of drive throughs australians have been getting fatter. you dont see the obese people in line inside the so called restuarant ,no they are inline in the drive through. we cant ostracize the obese as iam aware it is a symptom of other things going on in life.perhaps its better to focus on the cause rather than the symptom
See today’s Croakey blog post for the OPC’s response to Jennifer Doggett’s claims. https://croakey.org/the-evidence-backs-action-on-junk-food-advertising-to-kids-but-its-not-all-thats-needed/
@hptns On the issue of which nutritional criteria would be used as the basis for junk food advertising restrictions, the OPC and other health groups have proposed that nutrient profile criteria should be used. These criteria were developed by the UK Food Standards Agency to identify high fat, sugar and salt foods that are subject to advertising restrictions in the UK (see http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/nutprofr.pdf), and have been adapted for use in Australia by Food Standards Australia New Zealand as criteria for foods carrying health claims (see http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumerinformation/nutritionhealthandrelatedclaims/nutrientprofilingcal3499.cfm).