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Should ACMA put the industry before children’s health?

Monday, 1 September 2008

Boyd Swinburn, professor of population health at Deakin University, writes:

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The Australian Communications and Media Authority is in danger of losing all credibility as an independent regulator; the draft children’s television standards that it recently released suggest it is prepared to put industry interests ahead of the health and wellbeing of children and the community.

The ACMA set an unrealistic goal of “unequivocal evidence of a causal link between advertising and obesity”; they wanted it to explain a large amount of the variance in obesity rates; and they wanted evidence that the bans will reduce obesity.

These goals are just laughable - the reason that marketing explains so little of the variance in obesity, for example, is because it is ubiquitous. Smoking would explain none of the variance in lung cancer if everyone smoked.

Setting the bar so high has allowed ACMA to ignore the following arguments which a variety of health organisations put to their review:

• The evidence of a link between junk food advertising and obesity is far stronger than for any other single environmental influence on obesity rates. The evidence that 'marketing works' is enormous. Most of it is proprietary - focus group results, sales responses to promotions etc - but it gets translated by highly intelligent people in businesses with a vested interest in increasing consumption into several millions of dollars of ongoing marketing every year.

• The link between a high consumption of junk food and obesity is stronger than for any other behaviours, such as playing sport, TV viewing, fruit and vegetable intake, water intake etc.

• All the modelled evidence of likely population impact on obesity points to bans on junk food ads being more effective than anything else.

It is astounding that ACMA has misinterpreted the science to justify putting such a high value on potential lost income from broadcasters and such a low value on children's health.

ACMA has asked for comments on the draft standards by October 17.

Do you think television advertising of junk food to children should be banned? Do you think it would make a difference to obesity rates?

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Professor Mike Daube, Professor of Health Policy, Curtin University Monday, 1 September 2008 2:24:54 PM: ACMA's head-in-the-fries decision (or non-decision) on junk food
promotion is in line with the approach taken by other so-called
regulatory authorities.
The Advertising Standards Board recently rejected a complaint against
advertisements in which Olympians including athlete Jane Flemming and
cyclist Anna Meares promote McDonald's products, even bringing in an
association with Little Athletics.
The "determination" from the Advertising Standards Board (a group
established by the advertising industry as part of its approach to
self-regulation) includes this memorable sentence,
"The Board considered that given the complexity of the obesity debate
to suggest that these advertisements were encouraging unhealthy dietary
choices was too simplistic."
The McDonald's advertisements promote Big Macs, French Fries,
Thickshakes and Hot Fudge Sundae with extra topping. I wonder what are
unhealthy dietary choices if these aren't?
Judith Conway Monday, 1 September 2008 3:57:41 PM: Public health is a complex beast and there is no one quick-fix to obesity, inactivity or over-consumption, but reducing exposure to junk food ads would have contributed to creating an environment where consumption of junk would not have been presented as a normal way for kids to socialise, celebrate or make friends. Meanwhile hypocritical and buck-passing state and federal governments will continue to complain about the spiralling cost of healthcare. In a competition between the interests of kids and the interests of shareholders, kids lose!
Franca Marine, Executive Officer, Australian Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance Monday, 1 September 2008 4:18:21 PM: To deny that junk food advertising has any impact on increasing childhood obesity levels is just denying the obvious. Quite simply, companies spend millions of dollars advertising junk food to children during their peak television viewing times because they know that it will increase sales of their product.

In addition to influencing food preferences and eating habits, the sheer volume of junk food advertising to children undermines efforts by parents to instill healthy eating habits in their children and needs to be restricted if messages about healthy eating are to have any chance of being heard.

Restricting junk food advertising to children has to be part of a comprehensive strategy to tackle obesity.

We know that obese children tend to become obese adults, and this puts them at increased risk of developing chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, kidney disease and some cancers.

With the current cost of obesity estimated at over $58 billion, we can’t afford to ignore any avenue that offers scope to curb rising obesity levels.
Professor Stephen Leeder, Director, Australian Health Policy Institute Monday, 1 September 2008 5:38:15 PM: It would be useful if Boyd were to provide the evidence base on which he makes his assertions about the power of advertising and the benefits that come from banning it. It is hard to offer comments on assertions. While I would like to think that a ban would bring benefits, the evidence available to me is not supportive. So if he does have accessible supportive evidence we should all see it.
Dr Catriona Bonfiglioli, media analyst, UTS Monday, 1 September 2008 5:54:31 PM: The Australian Communications and Media Authority, which has power and responsibility to improve the unhealthy media environment in which our children are immersed, has just sent a large, receiver-pays telegram to the Australian public: Eating and drinking sweet, fatty, salty foods and drinks is safe and normal and not really a key risk factor for overweight and obesity.
This is a profoundly damaging and expensive communication because it is what industry and the junk food and drink consuming public want to hear. No one wants to hear that they are influenced by advertising or that the habitual eating and drinking of energy dense foods is a very important contributor to weight gain. Once again, Australians are being given a two-for-one special: a licence to fill plus the bonus offer of a false sense of security about the trivial nature of our dietary excesses.
The ability of one official body to evade responsibility for curbing some of the many factors driving the obesity epidemic also sends a message to the other official bodies who are relieved that they too can point to a lack of concrete evidence in their zone of authority and continue polishing their licence to regulatory apathy. There is no single cause of obesity nor will there be one single solution. However, the most powerful solutions are very likely to be found on our plate or in our glasses, cans or bottles and reflected in the mirror that advertising is holding up to life.
Meanwhile, the ACMA, which had a chance to start turning back the tide, will not be paying for the weight loss classes, the gym memberships, the depression medication, the cancer surgery, the heart attacks, the knee operations, the counselling for bullied children, the specialist obesity clinics for children and adults, the larger hospital beds, or the dialysis machines for diabetes patients. All these bills will be picked up by the taxpayer, individually or collectively. More to come...
Dr Catriona Bonfiglioli, media analyst, UTS Monday, 1 September 2008 5:56:00 PM: (cont)
Nor is the ACMA paying for the scientific research which might be able to provide the ‘missing’ link (or shall we call it a loophole) between the evidence that advertising influences children’s food and drink preferences and the evidence that eating an unhealthy diet influences obesity rates.
If we as a community are disempowered from taking logical steps to reduce factors in our social and physical environment which contribute to excess weight we will continue to pay the price: fatter profits paid for by fatter sicker Australians and their fatter sicker children, blamed for their own condition by a society which prefers not to recognise that business as usual is making us ill. A super-sized mistake.
ann meyer Monday, 1 September 2008 6:09:58 PM: As a parent who took full responsibility for my daughters health i actually have no time for this constant call for banning products or advertising or pointing the finger

If they can't advertise on TV then the companies will continue to find other avenues. They are a business and live in a democratic society. They have just as much right to advertise their junk as any other companies

Save your breath and tackle the problem from the grass roots level...the food processors who continue to make food that is detrimental to our health...they need to be encouraged to produce products of quality

Go back to FSANZ who are totally useless as food regulators

go back to parents who seem to be incapable of disciplining or educating their own kids about real foods
without having someone tell them what to do
Boyd Swinburn Tuesday, 2 September 2008 9:08:54 AM: (In response to Stephen Leeder's request): There have been several large reviews of the
power of marketing to children. The first two words of the Institute of Medicine's review are 'Marketing works'. These words are followed by a book full of systematic review evidence that shows that food marketing to kids influences their choices, influences their preferences, influences their requests (pester power) and influences their consumption. If anyone is still unconvinced that marketing junk food works to
increase kids' consumption of junk food, they just need to consider the many billions of
dollars being invested annually by food companies to target kids. These are very clever people who
have all the propriety evidence at their fingertips (focus group data, sales data in
relation to promotions, survey data etc) and they do not throw away billions of dollars without the
evidence that it works. Marketing works - we even teach it at universities. The second step
of the evidence is whether a high consumption of energy dense foods and beverages increases the
risk of unhealthy weight gain. This literature on this is enormous and there for the looking. The fact that such a ubiquitous influence as marketing explains only a small amount of the variance in children's body size is not surprising and is epidemiology 101 - like the difficulty of associating smoking with lung
cancer if everyone smoked. In relation to the question 'do bans on marketing have an influence
on consumption?' Apart from being the flipside of the 'marketing works', the evidence that
marketing bans on other products like tobacco, alcohol, and toys suggests a significant
impact. Bans on junk food advertising have never been instituted in a way that allows a robust
evaluation. Modelled data (eg Haby et al Int J Obesity 2006) show that such bans are likely to
have at least a ten-fold bigger impact than other potential interventions. (more to come...
Boyd Swinburn Tuesday, 2 September 2008 9:10:57 AM: In my humble opinion, the wrong question to ask is 'what is the proof that marketing junk food causes obesity?' because we will never get that proof untangled from the myriad of other influences on body weight. The right question is 'should restrictions on junk food marketing to kids be instituted as a 'promising' action tohelp reduce childhood obesity as part of a wide range of other promising actions?' Exempting the food industry from being part of the solution and sitting on our hands while we wait for proof for everything we do are not good public health recipes for obesity prevention.
Dr Rosemary Stanton Tuesday, 2 September 2008 12:39:11 PM: If by 'proof' ACMA requires a double-blind controlled trial, we are unlikely to ever have proof, although Australia would be a good place to institute a trial. In countries where bans are in place, children can still access TV beamed in (complete with ads) from neighbouring countries.

Did the food industry have such trials before they decided to market foods to vulnerable children? No - they simply understood the theory of marketing. No company spends millions on advertising unless it works to sell products.

If we want more proof, we need look no further than the outcry from the food industry and its supporters at any suggestion that we stop ads for junk food when children make up a large part of the viewing audience.

Of course, we also need to target the Internet promotions that companies are increasingly turning to because they know that sooner or later, someone is going to have the guts to declare TV ads for junk foods should stop.

Yet another study was released today showing that obesity in children continues to increase. Cutting their junk food consumption must be part of the solution. Studies in NSW show that children are responding to the call to play more sport. That's not enough - especially as they later consume more kilojoules. Could this be related to the products from the companies that sponsor their sport? That's certainly what the companies hope when they offer to sponsor kids' sport.

Advertising, promotions and sponsorship that target children need strong regulation. Oh for a government that would apply it rather than simply setting up yet another enquiry, advisory group or report that essentially just pushes a toothless code of practice (a voluntary code, as the Hollowmen so accurately noted).
Trish Wednesday, 3 September 2008 6:05:51 PM: And, tell me if I'm wrong, isn't it the case that the Heart Foundation still has its healthy tick program applied to several of Macdonalds' products? With behaviour like Mike Daube describes, isn't Macdonalds having a total lend of the Heart Foundation? What have they got to do before the Heart Foundation pulls the plug?
Penelope T Thursday, 4 September 2008 9:06:42 AM: Junk food advertising on television has been banned during children's watching time in many European countries. Children in those countries are not showing the weight gains that occur in countries where such ads are allowed.
Melissa Sweet Monday, 8 September 2008 7:39:35 PM: Prof Ian Olver, ceo of Cancer Council Australia, makes some relevant points - about bureaucracies, as well as obesity and junk food advertising - in this article: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24296123-23289,00.html

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Should ACMA put the industry before children’s health?

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