by Fast Food Marketing for Youth
A Yale University study presented last November 8th, during the American Association of public health’s annual meeting, in Denver, points out that fast food chains dangerously increased their advertising aimed at children and teenagers, going for kids as little as two years old until those of age nineteen.
Some of the alarming results of this research, conducted for more than a year in the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity of Yale, are based on a significant increase in advertising specifically aimed at children, from companies such as McDonald’s, Burger King and KFC. For example, in comparison with 2007 numbers, in 2009 children between 6 and 11 saw 26 per cent more McDonald’s commercials, 10 per cent more of Burger King’s and 59 per cent more from Subway.
This industry spent no less than $4.2 billion in advertising in the last year and, according to Yale, used mainly television, Internet, social media and mobile phone applications to capture the attention of children.
The co-author of the research, Ph.D. Kelly Brownell, noted “If they truly wish to be considered partners in public health, fast food restaurants need to drastically reduce the total amount of marketing that children and teens see for fast food and the iconic brands that sell it.”
The study, which included 12 main chains of fast food restaurants all around the United States, demonstrates this industry’s advertisement is so effective that Forty percent of children ages 2-11 ask their parents to go to McDonald’s at least once a week, and 15% of preschoolers ask to go every day. Actually, an 84% of parents report taking their child ages 2-11 to a fast food restaurant at least once in the past week.
Also, while this type of restaurants have said in the past they are improving their nutrition values and so, especially for the children meals.
Yale’s research demonstrated neither the portions of the meals have been reduced or have won nutrition value. In fact, out of the 3,000 kids’ meal combinations and 2,781 dishes on the menu the University studied, only 12 meet the researchers’ nutrition criteria for preschoolers and Only 15 meet nutrition criteria for older children, all others exceed healthy values of fat, sugar and sodium.
Even worse, Companies facing increasing pressure about portion sizes are renaming, rather than eliminating, their biggest sides and drinks. One of them is Burger King, that changed the name of their “King” 42 ounces drink by the name “Large”, but it is exactly the same amount of soda, only a game of words to make people believe they are eating less.
Another disturbing finding is that teenagers who buy food in these restaurants end up purchasing between 800 and 1,100 calories each time, which means half of the recommended total daily calories; in other words it’s like your 13 years old eating half their lunch and all their dinner at once.
Latin and Afro American children in the spotlight
Another important fi nding is the advertisement coming from the fast food chains aims for Latin and Afro American children. Hispanic kids see on average 290 TV commercials from fast food restaurants each year, while Afro American children and teenagers are impacted with 50% more publicity than their white peer, mostly commercials from KFC and McDonald’s.
For Yale scientists it is not a joke that these restaurant chains need to improve their advertising practices. “Despite pledges to improve their marketing practices, fast food companies seem to be stepping up their efforts to target kids,” said lead researcher Jennifer L. Harris, Ph.D., M.B.A., director of marketing initiatives at the Rudd Center.
