Mcdonald’s continues to lure kids with toys

Madam

Your ‘Out of the Box’ column rightly condemns transnational food and drink manufacturers for promoting their products with aggressively marketed toys that attract young children⁽Reference Cannon¹⁾. This abuse of children is worldwide.

At the EU level, the European consumer organisation BEUC is pressing for legislation to protect children from unhealthy food marketing. In the UK, the Children’s Food Campaign, which I represent, has long been pressing for restrictions on the advertising and marketing of junk and other unhealthy foods and drinks to children. Advertisements for unhealthy foods are no longer allowed during children’s programming, but are still permitted during programmes with a significant child audience, so we continue to campaign for a ban up to the ‘watershed’ of 9 pm. This would eliminate over 80 % of instances of children watching unhealthy food advertisements⁽²⁾. Much of the remainder would come from TV channels broadcast from outside the UK, emphasising the importance of international legislation. Public opinion is supportive – four-fifths of parents surveyed by the consumer group Which? believe that unhealthy foods should not be advertised when children are most likely to be watching television⁽³⁾.

Partly as a result of restrictions on TV advertising, food and drink manufacturers and caterers are increasingly using non-broadcast marketing techniques to reach children, including young children. Their techniques include toys, games and competitions, using websites with branded online activities clearly targeting children.

Your columnist mentions the McDonald’s ‘Happy Meal’ marketing of toys. In some areas of the UK such as Liverpool, there have been attempts to pass local bye-laws to prevent the use of toys as a marketing inducement. However, the company will not stop using toys to market their products to children. A member of McDonald’s UK’s Happy Meal marketing team has promised: ‘Next year, we’ll have even more competitions and activities in restaurants to make sure every visit is a genuine family treat’⁽⁴⁾.

Some food companies have made commitments to stop or restrict marketing to children, but such responses have been patchy at best and in some cases virtually meaningless. For example, PepsiCo has made much of its public pledge not to target its marketing at children⁽⁵⁾. However, in January 2009 the Children’s Food Campaign spotted finger puppets clearly aimed at young children on the company’s website. Later that month a debate organised by the Centre on Global Change and Health was held at University College London entitled ‘What role should the corporate sector play in tackling the global obesity pandemic?’⁽⁶⁾. At that event Derek Yach, PepsiCo’s Director of Global Health Policy, was confronted, and expressed disappointment that the puppets were on the website. They have since been removed, but the incident shows that voluntary corporate commitments are not reliable.

The evidence-based judgement is that guidelines and voluntary commitments made by food and drink companies that have global strategies to increase their sales of unhealthy food are not working and will not work. What parents and all concerned can trust, is comprehensive international legislation to protect children from the marketing of unhealthy foods and drinks, and from the burden of disability and disease that follows the high consumption of these products.

Editor’s note

We have received more correspondence on this topic, to be published next month. We will be pleased to receive responses from representatives of the food and drink companies mentioned here, for possible publication.