Tài liệu Protecting children from unhealthy food marketing docx

A British Heart Foundation and Children's Food
Campaign proposal for a statutory system to regulate
non-broadcast food marketing to children
Protecting children from
unhealthy food marketing
CChhiillddrreenn’’ss FFoooodd CCaammppaaiiggnn
www.childrensfoodcampaign.org.uk
II
Acknowledgments
The conclusions in this report have been reached
after a long process of discussion and
consultation. Particular thanks are due to the
author Richard Watts, Coordinator of the
Children's Food Campaign; as well as Alex
Callaghan, Yvonne Gritschneder and Ruairi
O'Connor at the British Heart Foundation (BHF);
Dr Mike Rayner from Sustain and Jane Landon of
the National Heart Forum who formed a steering
group to oversee the writing of the report.
An expert seminar was held in July 2007 to
discuss the current state of non-broadcast food
advertising to children. The seminar was
attended by: Isla Arendell, National Federation of
Women's Institutes; Emma Boyland, Liverpool
University; Jo Butcher, National Children's
Bureau; Alex Callaghan, BHF; Gill Cowburn, BHF
Health Promotion Research Group, Oxford
University; Kath Dalmeny, Sustain; Sue Davies,
Which?; Professor Gerard Hastings, Institute for
Social Marketing, University of Stirling; Jane
Landon, National Heart Forum; Dr. Tim Lobstein,

International Obesity Task Force; Kirsty
Schneeberger, Sustain; Professor Boyd
Swinburn, Deakin University; and Richard Watts,
Coordinator, Children's Food Campaign. The
conclusions of this report have been shared with
those who attended the seminar.
Particular thanks are due to a number of interns
who worked on the report: Alex Hale, Lianna
Hulbert, Shaira Kadir, Kirsty Schneeberger and
Harriet Smith. The report has only been possible
with their help.
Any mistakes in this report are, however, the sole
responsibility of the author.
Childhood obesity is one of the nation's most pressing public
health issues. If current trends continue, best estimates
suggest up to half of boys and almost a third of girls will be
obese by 2050. Obese children are highly likely to become
obese adults and the potential rise in cases of heart disease,
type 2 diabetes and diet-related cancers would create a
massive cost to the NHS, as well as huge suffering for those
involved.
Further action simply must be taken. Given the link between
the marketing of unhealthy foods to children and poor diets
amongst our nation's young, there is the strongest possible
case for further action to regulate marketing of unhealthy
foods to children.
This goes well beyond television advertisements. Health
groups have long called for a statutory system to regulate
marketing of junk food to children on promotional websites,
text messages, in-store placements, cinema adverts and

posters - but until now, no one has set out what these
arrangements might look like.
I commend this report as the first serious attempt to design a
truly comprehensive statutory system of regulation for non-
broadcast food marketing. I very much hope that the debate
it will undoubtedly stimulate will lead to action on how to
control unhealthy food marketing aimed at children.
Peter Hollins
Chief Executive
British Heart Foundation
IIIProtecting children from unhealthy food marketing
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. Diet-related diseases and unhealthy food marketing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1 Prevalence of diet-related ill health in the UK, including childhood obesity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2 The role of food promotion in making food choices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.3 Regulation of unhealthy food advertising in broadcast media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.4 Lack of regulation of unhealthy food marketing in non-broadcast media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.5 Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3. Non-broadcast unhealthy food marketing - what the existing regulation does and does not say . 11
3.1 What regulations are currently in place - the CAP Code and others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.2 What the current regulations do not cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.2.1 Product-based . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.2.2 Promotional . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.2.3 Placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.3 Criticisms of the current codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.3.1 The language used . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.3.2 Definition of 'children' and 'unhealthy food' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.3.3 Enforcement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.4 Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4. Models of good practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

4.1 Tobacco control in the UK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.2 Examples of unhealthy food marketing controls from other countries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.2.1 Quebec, Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.2.2 Sweden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.3 Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
IV
Contents
VProtecting children from unhealthy food marketing: Contents
5. How to protect children from non-broadcast marketing of unhealthy food . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.1 What the rules should be. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.1.1 General principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.1.2 Defining 'unhealthy food' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5.1.3 Defining 'targeted at children'. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
5.1.4 Marketing in store. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
5.1.5 Regulating websites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5.1.6 Brand advertising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5.2 Legislation and enforcement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5.2.1 The role of the ASA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5.2.2 Proposed role of Trading Standards Offices (TSOs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5.3 Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
6. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Appendices
1. The revised CAP Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
2. ICC International Code of Advertising Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3. Draft enforcement sheet for TSOs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
VI
Summary
Public interest groups have long made the
case that our current system of regulating non-
broadcast (i.e. not on television or radio)

marketing of unhealthy food to children is not
adequate. This report is the first attempt in the
UK to design a statutory system of regulation
for non-broadcast food marketing that protects
and promotes children's health.
Children's dietary health, in particular childhood
obesity, is widely recognised as one of our most
pressing public health problems. The recent
Foresight report on obesity makes grave
predictions for the future state of the nation's
health unless we act now. Without action, 55% of
boys, and 70% of girls, could be overweight or
obese by 2050 and obesity will cost the country
£45 billion a year.
Food advertising and marketing, which is almost
always for unhealthy products, plays an important
role in encouraging unhealthy eating habits in
children. These habits are likely to continue into
adulthood. It has been proven that advertisements
affect food choices at both brand and category
level i.e. a McDonald's burger advert is likely not
only to make a person more likely to buy a
branded McDonald's burger over another brand,
but also more likely to buy a burger per se.
Recent efforts have been made to restrict
television advertising of unhealthy food to children.
These regulations acknowledge the particular
susceptibility of children to the influences of
advertising. However, there are currently no legal
limitations on non-broadcast marketing aimed at

children. This category includes marketing
through sponsorship, packaging, text messaging
and the internet. This is a growing form of
advertising aimed at children and its omission from
statutory regulation damages the effectiveness of
the system.
Since there is no evidence to suggest that non-
broadcast advertising marketing which targets
children is any less effective than broadcast, it is
inconsistent to regulate advertising of unhealthy
foods on television while ignoring non-broadcast
marketing aimed at children. Regulations
governing broadcast and non-broadcast
advertising of unhealthy food to children must be
brought into line with each other. Both must reflect
the need to protect children from undue pressure
to choose unhealthy food over healthy food.
Non-broadcast food marketing is currently subject
only to voluntary codes developed and enforced by
advertisers. These include the Committee of
Advertising Practice (CAP) code. There are
several criticisms of this self-regulatory regime:
It is primarily designed to ensure advertising is
"legal, decent, honest and truthful" and not to
protect and promote health.
The rules mostly cover only advertising in a
traditional, narrow sense and ignore the wider
range of techniques used to promote a product.
The wording is vague and inconsistent.
Enforcement is weak and retrospective and

there is little incentive to comply.
This report analyses legislation in Quebec and
Sweden that stops the television advertising of all
food to younger children. It suggests that a
number of legal devices used in their legislation
VIIProtecting children from unhealthy food marketing: Summary
could be helpful in the UK, especially the Quebec
grid that decides which advertisements should be
controlled. The report also considers if there are
useful legal precedents in UK legislation to control
tobacco marketing. The definition of 'advertising'
used in this legislation covers anything with the
purpose or effect of promoting a tobacco product,
which is helpful in covering the range of marketing
techniques outlined in this report.
This report therefore proposes a regulatory system
based on the principle that individuals and
organisations must not act in a way where the
purpose or effect is to promote an unhealthy food
product to individuals under the age of 16. This
should be a statutory system enshrined in law, not
a voluntary industry code. The proposed law
prohibits all marketing whose purpose or effect is
to promote unhealthy food to children. This covers
not only traditional advertising methods but
anything that acts as advertising, such as
promotional websites, text messages, in-store
placements and so on.
The proposal would only apply to foods that are
classed as 'less healthy' by the Food Standards

Agency's nutrient profiling model. Less healthy
food promotions would then be assessed as to
whether they target children. Promotions would be
assessed as low, medium or high for two criteria.
The first is the extent to which the product targets
children. The second is the extent to which the
mechanism used to promote the product targets
children. Any promotion for an unhealthy food
product that is either highly targeted at children, or
a promotion which is medium highly targeted at
children would be restricted. Promotions assessed
as medium for both product and mechanism
criteria would also be restricted. This would mean
that no unhealthy food product specifically aimed
at children could be promoted. The report sets out
definitions for the assessment of each criteria.
Finally, the proposal recommends that the system
is enforced by Trading Standards Officers with the
support of the Food Standards Agency. We do not
believe that an industry body, such as the
Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), should
have a role in its implementation.
Adopting this system, we believe, would have a
significant impact on protecting and improving the
health of children in the UK.
1Protecting children from unhealthy food marketing: Introduction
Dietary health and wellbeing have never had a
higher profile in the UK. The groundbreaking
Foresight report

1
on obesity in mid-October 2007
predicts that, if present trends continue, 55% of all
boys and 70% of girls could be overweight or
obese by 2050. This report was closely followed
by a comprehensive World Cancer Research
Foundation report
2
which showed strong links
between diet, obesity and some cancers. At the
same time, a highly public and passionate debate
has raged between public interest groups and the
food industry about how best to protect children
from unhealthy food marketing.
The focus of this debate has been on how to
protect children from television adverts for
unhealthy food. But another strand of
campaigning by public interest groups has
received less attention. This is the issue of
protecting children from other forms of marketing
unhealthy food apart from television - so called
'non-broadcast marketing'.
This debate is now taking place in the wider
context of the risks posed to children by new
technologies such as video games and the
internet. The Departments for Children, Schools
and Families and Culture, Media and Sport are
supporting an independent review, under the
stewardship of Dr Tanya Byron, of the risks
children face from exposure to potentially harmful

or inappropriate material from these media. The
Byron Review is due to report to Ministers in
March 2008.
A number of reports from Sustain,
3
Which?
4
and
the Food Commission
5
have highlighted how some
non-broadcast marketing for unhealthy foods
targets children. In the age of multi-channel
television where no advert can expect to reach
anything like the audience of even ten years ago,
non-broadcast marketing has become an even
more important way for food companies to
persuade people to buy their products. It is
possible that any moves to regulate the marketing
of unhealthy foods via non-broadcast means will
meet the same vehement opposition that the food
industry accorded to the 9pm watershed.
A survey by the National Children's Bureau found
that children recognise the need to improve the
balance of healthy and unhealthy food and drink,
and support restrictions on how unhealthy food is
marketed to them.
6
A range of public interest
groups have also called for a statutory system to

regulate non-broadcast marketing of unhealthy
food to children. However, until now, no detailed
alternative to the current arrangements has been
published.
1 Introduction
1 Tackling Obesities: Future Choices, Foresight (October 2007),
page 36
2 'Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity and the Prevention of Cancer:
a global perspective', World Cancer Research Fund (October
2007).
3 The Children's Food Bill: why we need a new law and not more
voluntary approaches, Charlie Powell and Jeanette Longfield
(Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming, 2005).
4 Child Catchers (January 2006), Food Fables (November 2006)
and Cartoon Heroes and Villains (August 2007). All published
by Which? www.which.co.uk
5 Marketing of Food to Children, The Food Commission (October
2005).
6 Children's views on non-broadcast food and drink advertising,
Report for the Office of the Children's Commission, National
Children's Bureau, 2006
2
3Protecting children from unhealthy food marketing: Introduction
This report does just that. It is a workable
alternative to our current system of voluntary
regulation for non-broadcast marketing of food
products to children. We review the current UK
regulations and their shortcomings together with
relevant legislation from other jurisdictions, and for
the first time set out a comprehensive proposal for

how marketing of unhealthy food to children should
be defined and regulated.
Chapter Two briefly sets out the context for this
report, including the problems of children's dietary
health, the evidence on marketing controls that are
used to promote health and what rules govern
broadcast advertising. Chapter Three reviews the
current state of non-broadcast food marketing to
children and its regulation. Chapter Four looks at
good practice from abroad in developing robust
marketing controls and also seeks to learn lessons
from the successful regulation of tobacco
marketing in the UK. Chapter Five brings these
strands together to propose a new regulatory
system for non-broadcast food marketing to
children and concludes with proposals for action.
The recommendations made in this report are both
proportionate and based on solid evidence.
However, they mark a significant departure from
the status quo and will have extensive
ramifications for the food industry. Because this
report is a first, we recognise that it will be
controversial. However, we hope that the debate it
stimulates will lead to a consensus on how to
control unhealthy food marketing aimed at
children. We would welcome stakeholder testing of
the model to establish if it is, as we believe it to be,
a practical way for children to be protected from
unhealthy food marketing. We would also
welcome suggestions for changes which would

make the model both easier to implement and
more effective in protecting children's health.
A note on definitions
Throughout this report the following definitions are
used:
Children are defined as young people aged
sixteen and under.
Advertising is defined as a promotional
message put in a paid-for space.
Marketing is defined more widely as any
method used to promote the consumption of a
product. Traditionally this refers to the 'four Ps'
of Product, Price, Promotion and Placement.
Unless otherwise stated, this report refers to
marketing techniques as a whole and not just
advertising. However, we do not refer to the
price of products because this is a controversial
subject outside the remit of this report.
Unhealthy food is defined as food that is
classed as 'less healthy' under the Food
Standards Agency's Nutrient Profiling Model.
Please see section 5.1.2 for a further
explanation.
Non-broadcast media is defined as any media
used to advertise a product apart from
television and radio, for example magazines,
billboard posters, in-store displays and
websites. The scope of this report also covers
other ways of promoting food products such as
packaging.

4
5Protecting children from unhealthy food marketing: Diet-related diseases and unhealthy food marketing
Diet-related ill health, especially obesity, has
become one of the nation's most pressing
public health issues.
It is well-documented that childhood obesity is a
complex problem with a range of causes. Society
will need to take a long-term and multi-faceted
approach if we are to tackle the problem
effectively. Policies such as encouraging children
to exercise more, teaching all children to cook and
ensuring clear food labelling can all play a part in
improving children's health. However, these
proposals have been set out elsewhere and it is
beyond the scope of this report to re-examine
them. Instead, this section sets out the link
between poor health in childhood and the
promotion of unhealthy foods.
In particular, we examine the role that advertising
plays in forming children's attitudes to food and
their food choices in contributing to poor diet. The
principles which have informed the recent
introduction of restrictions on television advertising
of unhealthy food to children also inform our
analysis of non-broadcast advertising. The
conclusion of this analysis is that sensible
regulation that governs the advertising of
unhealthy food to children can and should be used
to protect and promote children's health.
2.1 Prevalence of diet-related ill

health in the UK, including
childhood obesity
Diet and health are intrinsically interconnected.
Heart disease, various types of cancer, dental
caries, poor mental health and a wide range of
other illnesses have been linked to poor diet, i.e. a
diet high in fat, salt and sugar and low in fruit and
vegetables. Similarly, certain foods (or their
nutrients) have been associated with good
physical and mental health and wellbeing.
The most high-profile dietary health issue is the
dramatic rise in childhood obesity. The Health
Survey for England has shown that over a 10 year
period, obesity in children aged 2 to15 nearly
doubled, from 11% to 19% in boys and from 12%
to 18% in girls.
7
Between 1995 and 2004 the
proportion of younger children aged 2 to 10
classified as either overweight or obese rose to
28%, while for older children it rose to 40%.
8
If
these trends continue, estimates suggest that at
least one fifth of boys and one third of girls will be
obese by 2020. The Foresight report on obesity
concluded that up to 55% of boys and 70% of girls
2 Diet-related diseases and
unhealthy food marketing
7 Health Survey for England 1995-2004. See www.ic.nhs.uk/

webfiles/publications/hsechildobesityupdate/
HealthSurveyForEngland210406_PDF.pdf
8 National Audit Office, Healthcare Commission & Audit
Commission (2006) Tackling Childhood Obesity - First Steps
(Norwich: The Stationery Office, available at:
www.healthcarecommission.org.uk/assetRoot/04/02/44/68/
04024468.pdf
could be overweight or obese by 2050 unless we
take effective action.
9 10
The Foresight report makes clear that the obesity
problem has a multitude of causes, including both
poor diets and falling levels of physical activity. At
its heart is the fact that most humans in rich
countries now tend to consume more energy then
they expend. Crucially the report contends that
obesity is largely caused by social problems and is
therefore not mainly a matter of personal choice.
For example, physical activity levels are lower
because of the way our society is now organised -
from the design of buildings encouraging the use
of lifts not stairs, to urban design favouring car
use. By the same token, we consume more
high-energy and low-nutrient food because the
way it is produced, priced and marketed makes it
more attractive and accessible.
Childhood obesity is linked to numerous health
problems, such as type 2 diabetes, and diseases
of the heart and circulation.
11

Being overweight
also increases the risk of high blood pressure (a
leading risk factor for stroke) and of high
cholesterol. The oft-cited findings of the Bogalusa
Heart Survey showed that three quarters of obese
children remain obese as adults,
12
clearly
indicating that, in the majority of cases, the risk
factors and health consequences associated with
child obesity persist into adulthood.
In short, poor diet in childhood contributes to a
range of health problems including childhood
obesity. Childhood obesity itself is a risk factor in a
range of other serious health problems in
childhood, which can extend through to adulthood.
What people eat as children and the early habits,
tastes and preferences that they develop are
therefore critical to the quality of the lives that they
will live.
2.2 The role of food promotion in
making food choices
To improve diets we must examine the many
factors that influence children's eating choices. As
with other aspects of child development, tastes are
formed by a range of influences. These start close
to home with maternal diet through pregnancy and
breastfeeding. As children grow and interact more
and more with their external environment, outside
influences increasingly come into play - family

habits, media, culture, school and peer groups all
affect food choices.
13
This presents society with a
number of fronts on which it might act to try to
ensure as positive an influence as possible on
children's food preferences. Clearly, acting on all of
them will have greater impact than acting on just
one or two. For present purposes this report
focuses on the influence of food promotion through
a variety of media, as this is an area which,
despite growing evidence and understanding of its
impact on children, has not been effectively
tackled.
The effect of marketing on product choice has long
been established. However, the impact of
television food adverts on food preferences has
also been demonstrated, as has an association
between the proportion of overweight children and
the number of food advertisements shown each
hour during children's television.
14
The seminal
Hastings Review
15
found that food promotion
affects preferences not only at brand level (e.g.
persuading people to choose one burger
restaurant over another) but also, more
importantly, at category level (e.g. persuading

people to eat more burgers instead of fruit). As the
food categories most heavily promoted to children
in the UK tend to be unhealthy, the effect on their
food choices contributes to an unhealthy diet.
6
7Protecting children from unhealthy food marketing: Diet-related diseases and unhealthy food marketing
There is also evidence that advertising may affect
children differently than it does adults. A number of
studies
16
have shown that younger children are not
able to discriminate between advertising and other
media content. It is not until the age of 8 that most
children have understood an advertisement's
intention to persuade. Other children may not
grasp this until age 12. This less sophisticated
understanding of advertising suggests that children
are particularly vulnerable to the effects of
advertising of unhealthy food.
In recent years, traditional broadcast (television
and radio) and non-broadcast (point of sale,
packaging, display and sponsorship) methods of
advertising and marketing have been joined by
new and emerging media such as internet
advertising. As we will see in the following
sections, regulation of unhealthy food marketing to
children through non-broadcast media is extremely
limited. This is troubling given its ubiquity in
children's lives. A survey of children by the
National Children's Bureau found that cinemas,

stands, magazines, displays in shops, posters and
billboards were cited as the places they saw
adverts for food most frequently. Over half of
children had seen an advert on the internet and
over a quarter had seen an advert via text
message.
“Well it's everywhere really - on posters, at
the cinema, in taxis, side of buses, on the
internet…”
Boy, age 13.
17
2.3 Regulation of unhealthy food
advertising in broadcast media
Before considering non-broadcast methods of
promoting unhealthy food to children this report
needs to be set in the context of the action taken
to date to limit broadcast advertising of these
products to children. In view of the evidence of the
links between the marketing of unhealthy food and
poor dietary choices, the Office of
Communications (Ofcom) introduced limited
controls on television advertising for unhealthy
food in April 2007.
18
The introduction of regulations restricting the
exposure of children to unhealthy food advertising
on television by Ofcom has been cautiously
9 Tackling Obesities: Future Choices, Foresight (October 2007).
10 Missing the target, Children's Food Campaign (October 2007)
draws together contributions from a number of authors expert

in the fields of medicine, academia and public interest
organisations.
11 Missing the target - The health consequences of obesity,
O'Connor R. (British Heart Foundation) and Woolnough S
(Cancer Research UK, 2007).
12 Relationship of Childhood Obesity to Coronary Heart Disease
Risk Factors in Adulthood: The Bogalusa Heart Study, D. S
Freedman et al (2001).
13 Missing the target - Changing children's food preferences,
Halford J & Boyland E (University of Liverpool, 2007).
14 Missing the target - Changing children's food preferences,
Halford J & Boyland E (University of Liverpool, 2007).
15 Hastings et al. (2003) Review prepared for the Food Standards
Agency. Centre for Social Marketing: The University of
Strathclyde
16 E.g. Young, B. (2003) Does food advertising influence
children's food choices? International Journal of Advertising,
22: 441-459; Young, B et al (1996) The Role of Television
Advertising in Children's Food Choice: Ministry of Agriculture,
Fisheries and Food; Hastings et al (2003) Review prepared for
the Food Standards Agency. Centre for Social Marketing: The
University of Strathclyde
17 Children's views on non-broadcast food and drink advertising,
Report by the National Children's Bureau for the Office of the
Children's Commissioner, July 2006
18 See www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/foodads_new/
statement/statement.pdf
8
welcomed as a first step forward in both protecting
this group from undue pressure to choose

unhealthy food, and reducing the pester power
experienced by parents and carers. The
restrictions are based on television viewers under
the age of 16 and apply to unhealthy foods,
showing the Nutrient Profiling Model to be an
effective means of determining what constitutes
unhealthy food (see section 5.1.2 for more details).
However, the restrictions are flawed in the way that
they apply to television programming. The
restrictions only apply to programmes where
children make up a twenty percent higher
proportion of the audience than they do of the
general population, which Ofcom describe as a
viewing index of 120. Effectively this means the
restrictions only apply to children's television
programmes and exclude the early evening
programmes most watched by children, including
Coronation Street and X Factor, because these
also attract a large proportion of adults in the
audience.
19
The viewing figures for a fortnight in
September 2007 showed that out of the ten most
popular programmes amongst under 10 year olds,
only two were covered by the Ofcom regulations,
leaving the programmes most watched by children
under 10 years open to unhealthy food
advertising.
20
This flaw has lead a consortium of experts from

health, academic and public interest organisations
to call for the restrictions to be applied to all
programming before the 9pm watershed.
Government has already accepted the efficacy of
the 9pm watershed by introducing this measure to
protect children from gambling adverts.
2.4 Lack of regulation of unhealthy
food marketing in non-broadcast
media
Professor Hastings stated recently that, while
understandable in the context of the last thirty
years, the focus solely on television is dangerous.
He expressed the concern that, as regulation is
applied to television, marketing budgets will shift to
other less controlled options.
21
Indeed Ofcom
figures show that the proportion of the total food
marketing budget spent on television advertising
fell from 68% to 64% between 2005 and 2007.
22
Hastings also draws an often overlooked
distinction between advertising (as happens
through television) and marketing. The latter
incorporates the full range of promotional activity
aimed not just at telling people about a product but
getting "the right product in the right place at the
right price". 'Right', he notes, means liked by the
consumer and profitable to the manufacturer - and
has nothing to do with being healthy. Product,

price, place and promotion come together to
create powerful brands. Hastings highlights the
particular susceptibility of children to this power,
citing a 2007 study published in the Archives of
Paediatrics & Adolescent Medicine that
demonstrates this by showing children prefer
McDonald's-branded carrots over generic ones.
In other words, focusing only on television food
advertising and not the wider non-broadcast
marketing picture ignores a swathe of promotional
practices shown to drive consumer behaviour, with
children making up one of the most easily influenced
consumer groups. Children's food marketing
concentrates on unhealthy food to encourage
children to eat more of it. This in turn contributes to a
range of health issues including childhood obesity
and its consequences, which is why this report
addresses marketing in its broadest sense.
9
2.5 Conclusions
It has long been known that poor diet in childhood is
a major contributor to poor health. Of particular
concern is the dramatic increase in childhood
obesity. Often persisting into adulthood, childhood
obesity increases the risk of suffering from a range of
serious diseases. The forecasts are bleak. Unless
action is taken, 55% of boys and 70% of girls are
expected to be overweight or obese by 2050.
The promotion of unhealthy food has been shown
to have a significant impact on children's food

choices. The bombardment of messages
promoting unhealthy food has contributed to a shift
in the balance of children's diets and is damaging
their health, often with life-long consequences.
Current government regulations on marketing
unhealthy foods to children do not go far enough.
The Ofcom restrictions on broadcast advertising of
unhealthy food are welcome but exclude the
television programmes most watched by children.
A 9pm watershed for unhealthy food advertising on
TV would address this.
More significantly, the Ofcom restrictions do not
cover many other marketing techniques used to
promote unhealthy food to children, techniques
which are being used more and more to increase
the consumption of unhealthy foods. If the
Government restricts advertising through
broadcast media but ignores advertising through
non-broadcast, media budgets will simply continue
to shift towards the latter in all its myriad forms.
Children will continue to be exposed to unhealthy
food marketing via posters, magazines, the
internet, packaging, text messaging and other
non-broadcast methods, completely undermining
the policy aim of broadcast restrictions.
The next chapter includes many real examples of
how the food industry goes about promoting
unhealthy food to children and shows how self-
regulation of non-broadcast advertising is failing. In
light of the state of diet-related ill-health among

children described in this chapter there is ample
evidence of the need for further action.
Protecting children from unhealthy food marketing: Diet-related diseases and unhealthy food marketing
There is an obvious flaw in applying controls only
to television. This leaves a significant gap in
controlling the methods of food promotion that
reach and influence children. The Government
has said it will go further to control unhealthy food
advertising if the evidence supports the need to do
so. Additionally, it will review the impact of the
restrictions on the nature and balance of food
promotion to all children, across all media.
23
In the next chapter, we will illustrate how widely
non-broadcast marketing is used to encourage
children to consume unhealthy food products.
19 Missing the target - Television advertising, Professor Vivienne
Nathanson, British Medical Association (Sustain, 2007).
20 Marketing of Unhealthy Foods to Children: How TV advertising
regulations are failing children, Which, November 2007
21 Missing the target - Non-broadcast marketing, 2007, Hastings,
G. (Director of the Centre for Social Marketing, University of
Stirling and the Open University).
22 Information supplied by Ofcom to stakeholder groups,
December 2007.
23 Statement to the House of Commons by the Rt Hon Alan
Johnson MP, 17 October 2007: Foresight review of obesity
(
11Protecting children from unhealthy food marketing: Non-broadcast unhealthy food marketing - what the existing regulation does and does not say

Food is promoted to children using an
increasingly sophisticated array of techniques.
Other than TV advertising, these are either
regulated using voluntary codes, or not
regulated at all.
Food is marketed using many diverse and
sophisticated ways of persuading children - and
their parents - to purchase a particular product.
Together with the more traditional advertising
forms, the following promotional techniques are
used to market food products to children:
New media, e.g. internet and SMS messaging
Sponsorship
Product packaging
In-store and 'point of sale' promotion
Product design
This chapter seeks to demonstrate the full extent
to which food promotion targeting children
continues to take place and discusses how it is
currently regulated. In particular it considers what
is, and is not, covered by the current regulatory
regime for non-broadcast marketing and concludes
by outlining criticisms of the main voluntary
industry code currently in place.
3.1 What regulations are currently in
place - the CAP Code and others
There is a wide range of codes which govern the
non-broadcast marketing of food to children. The
majority of these are developed and owned by
advertisers as part of self-regulatory regimes. To

the extent that they are enforced, this is also
largely carried out by industry organisations.
The body responsible for the major UK advertising
codes is the Committee of Advertising Practice
(CAP). CAP describes itself as: "… the industry
body responsible for the UK's advertising codes.
CAP's Non-broadcast Committee writes and
enforces the British Code of Advertising, Sales
Promotion and Direct Marketing (the Code). The
Committee comprises representatives of
advertisers, agencies, media owners and other
industry groups, all of which are committed to
upholding the highest standards in advertising."
24
The main code governing non-broadcast
advertising and marketing of food to children is the
British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and
Direct Marketing (the CAP Code), in particular
section 47 (see Appendix 1). The CAP Code
forms the backbone of the regulatory system for all
3 Non-broadcast unhealthy food
marketing - what the existing regulation
does and does not say
24 www.cap.org.uk/cap/about/cap_non_broadcast/
12
non-broadcast advertising and is intended to cover
content for all kinds of non-broadcast advertising in
paid-for space.
Section 47 was written by CAP and
representatives of the food industry in response to

the Government's 2004 White Paper 'Choosing
Health: making healthy choices easier'.
25
Choosing Health challenged the food industry to
change the nature and balance of food advertising
to children. The Government committed itself to
assess whether this had happened by 2007 and
use the outcomes of the assessment to decide
whether new legislation was needed. However,
this assessment has been delayed. In 2006, two
years after Choosing Health was published, CAP
began a process of revising their rules on food
marketing to children. These rules came into
effect on 1July 2007.
According to the CAP website,
26
its code covers:
1) Advertisements in newspapers, magazines,
brochures, leaflets, circulars, mailings, e-mails,
text transmissions, fax transmissions,
catalogues, follow-up literature and other
electronic and printed material
2) Posters and other promotional media in public
places, including moving images
3) Cinema and video commercials
4) Advertisements in non-broadcast electronic
media, including online advertisements in paid-
for space (e.g. banner and pop-up
advertisements)
5) Viewdata services such as Teletext

6) Marketing databases containing consumers'
personal information
7) Sales promotions
8) Advertisement promotions
In effect this means all paid for advertising is
covered by the CAP Code. The above methods of
promoting food to children are regularly used by
companies, as shown, for example, in traditional
magazine advertising such as the Wheetos and
Harvest Chewee Bar adverts below. The next
section of this report looks at what the CAP Code
does not cover.
The CAP Code is enforced by the Advertising
Standards Authority (ASA), a self-regulated body
set up by the advertising industry to monitor and
adjudicate on issues of compliance with the rules.
ASA is funded by the advertising industry through
a levy of 0.1% on display advertising and airtime
and 0.2% on Royal Mail Mailsort contracts.
27
13Protecting children from unhealthy food marketing: Non-broadcast unhealthy food marketing - what the existing regulation does and does not say
The CAP Code largely exists to ensure advertising
is 'legal, decent, honest and truthful'.
28
Although
the latest revision has addressed some concerns
about the marketing of unhealthy food to children,
it is still largely designed to ensure adverts allow
fair competition, rather than protect or promote
health.

There is a wide range of punishments that the ASA
can impose on errant advertisers. The ASA
argues that the regulations are self-enforcing
because it is the shame of bad publicity that
primarily acts to bring advertisers into line quickly.
Other sanctions such as putting out 'ad alerts' to
the sellers of advertising space; suspending
trading privileges; invoking mandatory pre-vetting
for all advertising material and, in the most
extreme cases, referral to the Office of Fair
Trading for legal proceedings are all available to
ASA if the threat of bad publicity fails to ensure
compliance.
Other codes relevant to governing the marketing of
food to children include:
The International Chamber of Commerce
(ICC) International Code of Advertising
Practice,
29
which sets standards of ethical
conduct to be followed voluntarily by all
concerned with advertising, whether as
marketers or advertisers, advertising
practitioners or agencies, or media. It is to be
applied against the background of the
applicable national law (see Appendix Two).
The European code
30
of the Confederation of
the Food and Drink Industry, known as the

CIAA, this the Europe-wide trade association
for the food industry has a code on marketing
food and drink to children modelled on the ICC
International Code.
The UK Food and Health Manifesto
31
published by the Food and Drink Federation
(FDF), the food industry's trade association in
the UK. This document describes limited
progress by the food industry in encouraging
healthy eating, sets out seven "commitments"
by the industry to consumers and provides
some good practice guidelines to companies.
Specific industry sector voluntary codes of
practice such as the Union of European
Beverages Association's (UNESDA) guidelines
(2005).
32
Some individual food manufacturers, for
example Cadburys, Coca Cola and Burger
King, have their own codes of practice for
marketing to children. In December 2007 a
number of large European food companies
announced a series of voluntary measures to
limit their marketing to children. Although these
did represent a step forward in some EU
countries, the announced measures had all
already been superseded by other
developments in the UK and so will have no
impact in this country.

These codes, in so far as they operate in the UK,
in some respects replicate the CAP Code and
none go further than it.
25 www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/
PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_4094550
26 From: www.cap.org.uk/cap/codes/cap_code/
ShowCode.htm?clause_id=1430
27 www.asa.org.uk/asa/about/short_guide/
28 www.asa.org.uk/asa/codes/cap_code/
ShowCode.htm?clause_section_id=16
29 www.iccwbo.org/home/statements_rules/rules/1997/
advercod.asp
30 www.ciaa.be/pages_en/homepage.asp
31
32 www.unesda.org/linkdocs/resp_choice.pdf
14
3.2 What the current regulations do
not cover
Concerns have been raised for some time that
many of the ways in which foods are promoted to
children are not covered by the CAP Code.
Specifically the code does not cover a number of
marketing techniques which can be broadly
grouped as follows:
Product-based - food packaging; colour and
shape of food.
Promotional - many aspects of the internet and
new media; sponsorship.
Placement - in-store point of sale promotion;
frequency of advertising.

In response to these concerns, the Department of
Health set up the Food and Drink Advertising Forum
(referred to as the DH Forum). The DH Forum is
made up of stakeholders from both the food industry
and public interest groups and aims to: "take
forward the commitments to develop a
comprehensive strategy to further restrict the
promotion to children of food high in fat, salt and
sugar."
33
The DH Forum established a number of
working parties to look at areas not covered by the
CAP Code: new media, food packaging, food
labelling and marketing in schools. No new
regulations have yet emerged as a result of its work.
The rest of this section considers the promotion
techniques not covered by the CAP Code.
3.2.1 Product-based
Food Packaging
Packaging can be an effective part of marketing
whether or not children are shopping for a specific
product - they might simply be in a retail
environment and thereby exposed to packaging. It
is also worth noting that whether or not children
are shopping accompanied by parents, there is no
evidence to show that the presence of parents
alters children's spending patterns.
The DH Forum Working Group on Packaging
agreed that the following presentations are used in
promotions potentially directed at children:

34
Novelty products including shaped packaging or
toys;
Give-aways, prizes and collectables;
Brand characters;
Lunchbox products - specifically marketed as
suitable for children's lunchboxes;
Packaging in catering outlets, for example
"Happy Meals";
Cartoon characters;
Celebrities;
Competitions and puzzles.
CAP does not consider a product's packaging to
be advertising, and so its code does not cover this
area. Indeed many techniques of food promotion,
such as the use of celebrities, are allowed on
packaging, but are not allowed under the CAP
Code on advertisements.
But children interviewed by the National Children's
Bureau said that promotions such as free gifts and
novelty packaging made them more likely to buy
particular products.
35
Comments included:
15Protecting children from unhealthy food marketing: Non-broadcast unhealthy food marketing - what the existing regulation does and does not say
“The football shape of the bottle
appealed to me straight away - I am
a football fanatic!” boy, 13
“Things like collectable cars in crisp packets
become a craze in school - when one of your

friends gets one and everyone wants to get
into it and starts bringing them in to swap.”
girl, Key Stage 2
Children emphatically agreed that celebrity
endorsement of unhealthy products made them
more likely to purchase a product. Marketing
which uses sport or healthy looking celebrities can
create a healthy image for a product, whether or
not it is genuinely nutritious. One girl of 15 said:
“When you see a celebrity promoting
something you think well they eat that and
look great so I can too.”
36
Colour and shape of food
There are countless examples
of food products containing
artificial colouring with no
other purpose than to make
products attractive, which
would otherwise appear
bland or undistinguished.
This applies to food for the
general population (such
as mushy peas; red
Leicester cheese; some yoghurts; many egg-
based products); but it is particularly common in
food products designed to attract children. For
example, Fanta Tropical Fruits has particularly
bright colouring going well beyond the idea of
replicating the colour of orange fruit - the flavour it

artificially imitates. Product shape is also used with
the specific aim of attracting children - for example
'Shrek' and 'Happy Hippo' biscuits are clearly
targeted at a young audience.
The colour and shape of food products are not
covered by the CAP Code, nor any other code to
regulate marketing.
3.2.2 Promotional
New media
New media, in particular the internet and text
messaging, are increasingly important methods to
promote food to children. Research shows that in
2006, 14 percent of all exposure to advertising was
on-line, a figure expected to grow steadily.
37
The
"Child Catchers" report by Which?
38
outlines
numerous on-line techniques that companies use
to build up brand allegiance and promote particular
products. Although on-line marketing still accounts
for a relatively small proportion of the total money
spent on marketing unhealthy food, its importance
is growing as part of companies' overall marketing
strategies.
39
One study found that 43% of primary
school children said they would eat or buy more of
33 From the minutes of the initial DH Forum meeting on 7 July,

2005.from www.dh.gov.uk/en/Policyandguidance/
Healthandsocialcaretopics/Healthyliving/DH_4118965
34 Minutes can be found at:
www.dh.gov.uk/en/Policyandguidance/
Healthandsocialcaretopics/Healthyliving/DH_4115815
35 Children's views on non-broadcast food and drink advertising,
Report for the Office of the Children's Commissioner, 2006
36 Children's views on non-broadcast food and drink advertising,
Report for the Office of the Children's Commissioner, 2006
37 Figures from the World Advertising trends 2007, World
Advertising Research Centre, World Federation of Advertisers.
Supplied to stakeholder groups by Ofcom in December 2007.
38 Available at: www.which.co.uk/files/application/pdf/
060131childcatchers_rep-445-76882.pdf
39 Thompson Intermedia's report to the DH Forum estimated that in
2005 online promotions accounted for one percent of the money
spent on food promotion.
16
a food brand because they had seen it on-line or
played a game about it, and over 20% go on-line
to find out about their favourite foods and snacks.
40
New media and websites are used to promote food
to children in a wide variety of ways. While the DH
Forum Working Party on New Media Advertising
41
concluded that the CAP Code was "the most
extensive self-regulatory framework already
covering new media", ASA's new Chair, Lord Smith
of Finsbury, recently warned that the ASA is unable

to rule on nine out of ten complaints made to it
about the internet because they involved the
'editorial' content of websites.
42
The DH Working Party noted that the CAP Code
specifically does not include:
Website content including anything emanating
from that content, e.g. streamable downloads,
wallpapers, screensavers, or on-line games.
The CAP Code classifies these as editorial
content and not as marketing material.
Commercial e-mails or SMS text messaging
to existing customers about an existing
relationship or past purchases.
Marketing activity originating outside the UK
If the ASA receives complaints about this
activity it refers the complaint to the relevant
national regulatory body (if such a body exists).
Product Placement in new media - e.g.
products placed inside computer games which
are currently seen as editorial content.
Since the majority of new media marketing has been
defined by the CAP Code as "website content," it is
impossible to claim that there is effective regulation
of most new media marketing. As we will see from
some of the examples below, this includes many of
the most common ways the food industry markets
unhealthy food products to children.
Food company websites targeting children:
(Clockwise from top right) The Cadbury's 'Fun and

stuff' page; Nugget Valley from the Nestle Fantasy
World of Fun; The Mysterious Treasure Chest at the
Haribo site; Board games on the McDonalds' 'Kids
Zone'; Wayne Rooney featuring on the Coca-Cola
website (www.coca-cola.co.uk/football/streetstriker).
All examples live as of January 2008.
17
The most basic way that companies use new
media to promote food to children is through
specifically targeted websites. For example,
McDonald's have a 'Kids Zone' with a series of
graphics aimed at attracting young people to the
McDonald's site. Cadbury's have a 'Fun and stuff'
section of their website, with a range of features
attractive to children, including a game which
'splurges' your desktop with chocolate.
43
The soft
drink manufacturer Irn Bru aims its website
(www.irn-bru.co.uk) squarely at children, with a
'Gasping Grannies' game. It also encourages
children to enter their details to win 'The Sacred
Badge', but does not recommend that they seek
the permission of parents to do this.
Food companies also sponsor special websites
aimed at children to promote their products. For
example the 'Fantasy World of Fun'
(www.fantasyworldoffun.com) website is not
obviously branded as a Nestle website but includes
links to various Nestle cereals throughout the site.

Offering children the option of downloading
screensavers, toolbars or customised cursors is
also a popular practice for food companies. This
enables their brand message to persist, even after
children have left the website.
A lot of food company websites provide games to
children. For example, Kinder offer a wide range
of games to download (www.magic-kinder.com/
mkv2/GB_en/games_todownload.do) and to play
on-line (www.magic-kinder.com/mkv2/GB_en/
games_ai.do); McDonalds offer a number of
40 Intuitive Media, New Media Age magazine, July 2007
41 Minutes, including the attendees at the meeting, available from:
www.dh.gov.uk/en/Policyandguidance/
Healthandsocialcaretopics/Healthyliving/DH_4115815
42 Financial Times, Advertising regulator to target internet, 3 July
2007.
43 www.cadbury.co.uk/EN/CTB2003/fun/splurge.htm
Protecting children from unhealthy food marketing: Non-broadcast unhealthy food marketing - what the existing regulation does and does not say