Advertising to Children
The marketing of food to children is a massive enterprise. Since the 1960s, when children were singled out as a lucrative market, corporations have sought to reach children early to create life-long consumers. A more immediate objective is to capture the economic power wielded by children that includes their influence over parental purchases ($200- $500 billion) and their own subsequent independent spending ($20 billion).
Food and beverage industries spend more on food marketing each year. Food marketing expenditures in the U.S. were estimated at $361 billion in 1991 and $538 billion in 2000, not including imports and certain food categories. Marketing accounts for 81% of food costs, up from 78% a decade ago. With few exceptions, industry is free to market calorie-dense, nutrient-poor foods to children of any age, in any demographic group, in any amount, and in any way. And there is little to compete with food industry messages. In the year that funding peaked at $3 million for the main government nutrition education program (5-a-Day), McDonald’s spent $500 million dollars on a single advertising campaign (“We Love to See You Smile”).
Businesses spent $15 billion marketing products to children in 2004 and were rewarded with $200 billion in sales; one third to one half of those advertising dollars are spent on food advertising, the overwhelming majority of which is for sugared breakfast cereals, fast food, soft drinks, snacks, and candy and gum. Advertising’s overall message to children is clear – eat a lot of food, snack between meals, lobby parents to buy certain products (what the industry calls "pester power"), forget the distinction between treats and meals (e.g., Cookie Crisp and Reese's Puffs breakfast cereals), and aspire to the attributes portrayed in the marketing (fame, fun, friends) by eating the advertised foods. The effect that this advertising has on childhood obesity is robust and clear.