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The ‘why is my kid fat’ debate

Posted in General, Advertising, Marketing December 11th, 2006 by Melinda Varley

It is a well known fact now that the UK is suffering from an obesity epidemic in both children and adults.

Nearly half of all men and one third of women in the UK are currently said to be overweight with 17 per cent of men and 21 per cent of women officially classified as obese.

Blame for this sudden expansion of the public has recently been put on the advertising industry and in turn, now Ofcom for not enforcing a 9pm watershed ban of all junk food marketing.

Ofcom said in a recent statement: “We believe our approach is proportionate and targeted at the areas of greatest risk. The new restrictions put forward would have the effect of removing all advertisements for products that are HFSS from all programmes, broadcast at any time of day or night, which hold particular appeal for children up to the age of 16.

“We will also work closely with our advertising co-regulators, the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) and the Advertising Standards Authority to implement additional new rules on the content of advertisements.”

But the responsibility goes much further. If you will remember, Jamie Oliver put his heart and soul into helping our ‘fat’ kids when he launched Jamie’s School Dinners, which later caused a huge uproar among some parents.

So bad was the defiance, that parents at a south Yorkshire school actually began pushing fish and chips and other take aways through the school fences citing it was unfair that kids had little ‘options’ as to what they could eat at school. No advertising agency had ever come up with that concept before.

The point begs the question of whether or not we actually do want to get rid of junk food or do we just want to get rid of the temptation.

What will a watershed ban on all marketing to children actually do?

The ban will not be a silver bullet for the obesity monster. It will simply just encourage advertisers and brands to be a little smarter. It’s a challenge that has already generated a growing number of strategies that have revealed it could actually be worse than Ronald McDonald.

It has been reported that kids now actually spend more time on the internet than they do in front of their TVs. Secondly, most kids are walking around with some sort of MP3 player or playing around with their mobile phones and advertising on these couldn’t be easier.

At the recent 3 X-series launch, which saw the mobile media company pull together with a number of internet services, CEO Frank Sixt explained how the new services would open up a whole new advertising market via the internet and mobile handsets.

Vodafone now even offers customers who agree to accept carefully targeted display advertisements savings on certain Vodafone services.

Direct marketing is set to take off and it’s going to be more personalised, so kids that often get up when an ad comes on TV will now actually be forced to see the ads through the letter box, the mobile phones, MP3 players and magazines.

Ofcom shouldn’t be responsible for the ‘fat’ kids. And I’m not sure if even the government should be entirely so. Parents should take responsibility for what they feed their kids and not grab the first thing off the convenience shelves at the supermarket or buy what their kids want.

There is a certain responsibility that comes with being a parent that isn’t being taken seriously or even being highlighted. Instead, the blame, when things go wrong, is pointed at someone else. First it was Jamie, then ads and now Ofcom. Who is next? Technology?