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Laying the Groundwork: Taking Stock of Advertised Foods
Author: Eve Pranis
 Bright, busy cereal boxes on low shelves promise plastic
movie heroes. Friendly, familiar TV characters invite youngsters to
“supersize.” Food advertising is hardly new, but these days,
peddling foods to kids is a $13 billion a year business! No surprise:
Few of the 11,000 food ads youngsters see each year pitch healthful
fare. In fact, 80 percent of all food ads hype sugary cereals and soft
drinks, fatty fast food, or salty snacks. Only two percent feature
fruits, vegetables, grains, or beans. Can you recall when
you last saw an ad for broccoli?*
It’s not just cute cartoons that vie for youngsters’ attention. A
sophisticated blend of marketing – themes of fun and fantasy, movie
and video game tie-ins, kids’ clubs, and more – entice them to opt
for foods poor in nutrition. But we think that students can
figure out the “sell” and, with support, become advertising-savvy consumers.
This means asking important questions about what they read, see, and
hear. What tricks do marketers use to grab my attention? How do they
want me to feel about the food? Does the scene on the box front fit
the nutritional reality?
As students dig in to food ads and packages, and learn to keep their
critical eyes peeled, they can begin to evaluate how the pitch affects
their nutritional choices. Once they do this – and then practice promoting
their own garden fare or nourishing edibles – they will be more likely
to opt for healthful food choices.
Overview
Pitching Foods to Kids: Some Statistics
• A
2005 study at the University of Illinois concluded that the
more TV children watch, the more confused they are about
which foods are healthy and nutritional. Other researchers
found that the more TV kids watch, the fewer fruits and vegetables
they eat.
• The
Center for Science in the Public Interested found in its
review of Saturday morning programming that out of 54 Kellogg
commercials, 98% were for nutritionally poor food resources.
• Soft-drink
marketers in Europe have pledged to stop marketing to children
under 12 and to limit soft-drink sales in schools.
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Students ponder food ads they’ve encountered. As they do, they begin
to consider which types of edibles are marketed most frequently.
This prepares them for understanding that foods low in nutritional
value are marketed to youngsters more frequently than healthful foods
are.
Work as a class or in small groups. Invite students
to recall food advertisements they’ve seen or heard. (You can limit
this to ads targeting
children.) Make a list of the products on the board or chart paper;
students can add a short description to recall each ad (e.g., Macdonald’s:
the skateboard one). Have them put a star by the ads they like
best and explain what they like about them.
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Challenge the class to
group the products into categories as they
see fit. (They can use a color or symbol to indicate categories.)
For instance, they might identify breakfast foods, drinks, and
so on.
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As the class reviews the list, ask, Which of your
categories had the most ads? The fewest ads? How would you explain
those
differences? (If appropriate, point out how few ads for fruits and
vegetables
showed up on the list. Ask, How often do they turn up in
the media
at all
(e.g., people eating broccoli on TV)?
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Suggest trying another
grouping that takes nutritional value into account. For instance,
students might group food ads according
to
where the food’s main ingredients fit on the food pyramid,
how healthful students think they are, or how much sugar or fat they
contain (e.g.,
low, medium high).
Making Connections
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As students review their findings, ask, What general
statements can you make about food advertising? About food ads and
health or
nutrition?
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Do you think your food choices are influenced by advertisers?
If so, how? Otherwise, why not?
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Invite students to discover some
of the strategies food companies and advertisers use to persuade
us to choose their food fare first.
Check out the activity
Persuasion:
It’s All in the Packaging.
Digging Deeper
Food Ads in School? Taking a Stand
Challenge students to look for evidence of food advertisements in the
school. (They might note cafeteria posters, vending machines, sports
billboards, educational materials or contests, and so on.) Discuss
the types of foods being advertised. Pose this question: Should
food advertisements be allowed in school? Ask students to go to one side
of the room if they agree, to the other side if they disagree, and
in the middle if they have mixed opinions
or are unsure. Launch a
discussion by asking volunteers to explain why they placed themselves
where they did.
Food Ad Pyramid
Once your class has explored the five food groups and the new Food
Guide Pyramid,
have them make a list of all the food advertisements they see
in a day. Remind them to look in magazines, television, movies (including
“product” placement), billboards, flyers, and so on. Make a large
blank drawing of the food pyramid. Have students post words,
drawings,
or cut out pictures of items (not brands) from their lists near
appropriate sections of the pyramid. What conclusions can they draw
about food
advertising?
Musing on Magazine Ads
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Ask each student to bring in a magazine from home.
Bring in some extras so you have a variety of categories and audiences
represented.
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Challenge small groups to sort the magazines into
general categories (e.g., sports, fitness, kids). Write the categories
on
the
board. Divide each one into 2 columns labeled as follows: # ads for more
healthful foods and # of ads for less healthful foods. Explain that
each group
must decide what those terms mean to them.
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Randomly pass
out several magazines to each group. Explain that they must first
decide in which category to put each magazine.
As they then look at food ads in each one, they must decide in which of the
two columns to assign each ad. They can save ads they’re unsure
of to discuss
later.
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Once the chart is complete, ask, How did you decide
which foods were more healthful and which foods were less healthful?
What
do you notice about the magazine categories and types of ads they feature?
How would
you explain that?
*The ads we do see promoting
produce often come from the federal Five A Day campaign, which has
a minuscule budget relative to that of the snack food industry.
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© 2009
National Gardening Association