Exposing Fast Food Marketing Practices
By Matt Gruenburg, December 2, 2010
This November, the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity released the most comprehensive study ever conducted on fast-food nutrition and marketing to children.
The findings? Fast-food companies provide largely unhealthy side dishes and drinks as the default options with kids’ meals, and advertise to children as young as 2 across a variety of media. Out of 3,000 kids’ meal combinations researchers analyzed, only 12 were healthy for preschoolers, and only 15 were healthy for older kids.
African-American and Hispanic youths in particular are exposed to massive amounts of fast-food advertising. African-American kids saw at least 50 percent more fast-food TV ads in 2009 than their white peers. That translated into twice the number of fast-food calories viewed daily.
Funded by the Rudd Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a Burness client, the report examines the actions of 12 of the largest fast-food chains in the country. (The fast-food industry spent more than $4.2 billion on marketing in 2009.)
The report’s release struck a chord. Katie Couric discussed it as the lead story on the CBS Evening News (see the embedded video above this post) and media across the country reported on its findings. An article by Advertising Age noted some of the discrepancies between what fast-food companies have pledged to do and what they are actually doing:
“According to the study, children’s exposure to fast-food TV ads is increasing, even for ads from McDonald’s and Burger King, which have pledged to reduce unhealthy marketing to children. Compared with 2007, in 2009 children aged 6-11 saw 26% more ads for McDonald’s and 10% more for Burger King.”
Advocates for change have some reason to be hopeful: Last year, the Rudd Center released a similar report on cereal companies. A little over a month later, General Mills announced it would be reducing the amount of sugar in several of its cereals marketed to children.
How this year’s findings will ultimately impact what’s sold to children and how it’s marketed is still unclear. But shedding light on the scope of the problem is an important first step.
