Junk Food Science

The Mail, along with most other publications, is reporting on a survey by consumer magazine Which? that showed, quel surprise, most people interviewed think it’s irresponsible for companies to put cartoon characters on “unhealthy foods”. This was followed for a call for a ban on junk food advertised to children.

As far as I can see, there are several problems with this:
1) Children don’t buy food, parents do. So the decision is down to the parent.
2) There’s no such thing as junk food. Eating a little salt, fat and sugar isn’t just harmless, it’s healthy.
3) Advertising agencies need to put their client’s image where it is exposed to the target market. Disney don’t brand apples because nobody brands apples - they’re a staple, not a luxury. Sticking Disney characters on bags of apples won’t help sell them, so if you force companies to lend their characters to “healthy” products the result is a loss for both apple sellers and Disney.
4) If you’re going to force advertisers to only brand “healthy” options, please submit a list of every foodstuff on earth divided cleanly into “healthy” or “unhealthy”. Trail mix is high in sugar and fat. So where is it going to be?

We’re in dire need of a little self-responsibility here. Otherwise we can sum these protests up, as the Onion famously quipped, “Why won’t someone do something about how fat I am?”

2 comments August 21st, 2007