Obesity concern over Indiana Jones film marketing
News-Medical.Net
May 19, 2008
Obesity experts
today questioned Burger King's commitment to improve its
standards on marketing to children on the day it
launched its new 'Indiana Jones' campaign in the US with
toys, internet games and scratch competition prizes.
They fear the new campaign running on children's cable
channels such as Nickelodeon and Disney will in effect
promote the overall brand range including another
Indiana Jones special - the Indy Double Whopper being
sold in the USA at $4.29. The standard Double Whopper
contains almost 1000 kcalories and a heart-stopping 30
grams of saturated fat.
The company has pledged that by the end of the year 100
percent of its advertising aimed at children under 12
will be for Kids Meals containing up to 560 kcalories
that the company calls its 'stringent nutrition'
criteria, although a single meal provides around one
third of an eight year old child's daily energy
requirements. It also says by next year the nutritional
content of meals for children will meet WHO criteria
recommending less than 30% fat including less than 10%
saturated fats, no trans fats and less than 10% sugar.
Burger King's latest sales drive to children includes
games linked to the latest Indiana Jones film, the
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Promotions include a
'Reveal the Secret' scratch and win game, and a 'Big
Dig' online game, and an 'adventure heroes' toy series
to collect. Burger King has pledged to restrict its
advertising to children under 12, which uses third-party
licensed characters, to Kids Meals meeting its nutrition
criteria.
"This turns the spotlight on the need for much higher
standards of responsibility in regard to vulnerable
children. Using film themes and characters like Indiana
Jones makes children sitting targets for a hard sell
both within and outside the cinema," said Dr Tim
Lobstein, director of the childhood obesity programme of
the International Obesity Taskforce (IOTF), part of the
International Association for the Study of Obesity (IASO).
"It isn't enough just to claim that you are aiming
certain products with a self-styled nutrition standard,
whilst also selling a portfolio of similarly branded
products that are precisely the kind of junk foods that
not just children but all of us should be avoiding. It's
clear that much more needs to be done pretty urgently to
address the massive scale of childhood overweight and
obesity in the USA, but we should make sure that in the
UK and Europe, the Indiana Jones promoters do not trade
children's health to make a fast buck here," he added.
"We are deeply worried that companies will claim they
are doing all they can to protect children's health
while in reality they continue to promote fatty and
sugary calorie-filled junk, using a range of
child-friendly inducements", added Dr Lobstein.
Dr Lobstein was speaking at the European Congress on
Obesity in Geneva, following a presentation at the
IOTF's seminar on the major global issues in obesity
prevention, which includes the newly proposed
International Code on Marketing to Children developed by
Consumers International, the IOTF and IASO.
Prof Boyd Swinburn, who heads the WHO Collaborating
Centre for Obesity Prevention at at Deakin University,
Melbourne, Australia, and chaired an IOTF group which
developed the 'Sydney Principles' on marketing, said the
food industry still needed to adopt higher ethical
values in their approach to children. "It is simply
unethical to exploit the vulnerabilities of children by
using this kind of marketing on the back of popular
children's films and characters. It is perpetuating the
commercial exploitation of children."
Health ministers meeting at the World Health Assembly in
Geneva next week are being urged to take up the Code as
a model to incorporate into their action plan on
preventing non-communicable diseases. The World Health
Organization was mandated by the Assembly last year to
draft new recommendations on marketing to children.