Giving Compass' Take:

· Food Tank publishes an excerpt from Nourished Planet: Sustainability in the Global Food System that discusses the heavy, negative influence food advertisements have on children. By displaying these ads to children at a young, malleable age, Big Food creates a lifelong group of consumers at the expense of public health.

· In what ways can we encourage children to eat healthier? How can we hold Big Food accountable for the problems advertising causes? 

· Learn how food workshops shape our eating habits.

Corporations influence food choices most heavily through advertising, and the advertising of junk food to kids is the worst culprit of all in undermining public health. At an age when children are primed to learn the habits that will have lifelong effects on their health, these ads steer them toward unhealthful foods. Big Food is thus able to create a base of lifelong consumers at the expense of the health of children and the health of the future.

A 2015 study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that between 2007 and 2013, “no significant improvement in the overall nutritional quality of foods marketed to children has been achieved” by “industry self-regulation.” The study concluded that “the lack of success achieved by self-regulation indicates that other policy actions are needed to effectively reduce children’s exposure to obesogenic food advertising.” Children and adolescents are now the target of intense and specialized food marketing and advertising efforts. Food marketers are interested in young people as consumers because of their spending power, their purchasing influence, and their potential as future adult consumers.

Read more about the effects of big food advertising by Sarah Axe at Food Tank.