Food Fight: NYC Youth vs. Predatory Marketing

About

Traditional health education provides children and youth a simple recipe for good health: stay away from drugs, don’t drink or smoke, and eat fruits and vegetables. However, such education competes against $2 billion dollars in annual marketing aimed at making unhealthy junk foods more appealing to youth, particularly Black and Latino youth. As more and more researchers establish the link between unhealthy diet and diet-related diseases, the importance of teaching youth about healthy food choice as a crucial component of their health, quality of life, and longevity becomes clearer.

Viewed intersectionally, food choice impacts health, capacity to learn, workforce development, and civic engagement. Rather than traditional health education, youth need skills and information that empower them to make conscious, informed decisions about what they choose to eat, and allow them to play leadership roles to educate peers, families, and neighbors of all ages..

Please join us for a discussion led by an expert panel on the power of food countermarketing training as a way to combat predatory marketing and decrease the consumption of unhealthy food and beverages. Panelists will discuss the strategies used by marketers of unhealthy food, and the media, culture, and arts tools taught to young people ages 13-18 to develop and deliver countermarketing campaigns advocating for healthier food environments to their peers, families, and neighbors.

Explore

• Countermarketing as both a tool to improve young people’s health and to teach them transferable life skills
• Countermarketing as a support for other policies that reduce exposure to unhealthy food and promote healthier communities
• Intersectoral and intersectional importance of food justice and infusing the movement with youth voice and leadership
• Gaps in funding and how philanthropy can support countermarketing and youth development

Speakers

• Oumou Dukuray, Youth Food Justice Leader, Youth Food Educators
• Nick Freudenberg, Distinguished Professor of Public Health, CUNY School of Public Health and Health Policy
• Charita Johnson James, Director of Youth and Community Development, CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute
• Jerome Nathaniel, Senior Program Manager, City Harvest
• Bronwyn Starr (Moderator), Program Officer, New York State Health Foundation

Registration is required by June 5th.