The Ethics of Food Advertising

Transcription

1 The Ethics of Food Advertising Joseph Okolowski Introduction Fast food advertising has become a major concern in the arena of food product advertising. Advertising to children, in particular, has become a heated topic as it is suggested that there is a lack of advertiser responsibility. Corporations such as McDonald s serve millions of meals each day, with much of their menu not being part of a healthy lifestyle. Large advertising campaigns have presented information to the public that has been twisted to create a false image of seemingly healthy products. Other restaurants such as Taco Bell have created campaigns to promote eating more food, and providing the unhealthy food for less money. We discover that much of these restaurants healthy menu selections are not all fit for a healthy lifestyle, and unless single nutritious items are eaten, or small portions are eaten, that fast food can be harmful to your health. Advertising to children has been done since the early 1980 s, and children are considered their own target market in the marketing spectrum. Advertisers have only been concerned with sales in the past and consumer health is not a major concern for them, other than as a marketing campaign slogan. Nations such as the United Kingdom (UK) have addressed some of these issues, and have even

2 gone as far as banning junk food commercials during specific time slots. These efforts have been due, in part, to a large increase in obesity of the population. Healthy Fast Food Alternatives In the year 2003, McDonald s began a nationwide advertising campaign in the United States to promote healthy eating and living. Components of this campaign were removing the super size option, allowing the option of replacing fries and a soda with milk and apple dippers in a Happy Meal, introducing healthy salads with chicken, and forming new happy meals for health conscious adults which included a pedometer, salad, a bottle of water, and a pamphlet on walking and staying fit (Tanner, 2004). In the past two years, they have introduced new fruit, yogurt, and other low fat options into their menu. At first glance, it seems that McDonald s is beginning to promote healthy alternatives to their calorie, fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol rich food. However, on closer examination, these recent options may not sound as healthy as they have been promoted to be, and for consumers, often take a back-seat to the burgers and fries. It is also interesting to see how these new options are presented to the waiting consumer. Out of all the products introduced in the past few years, the only ones that are immediately noticeable are the salads. There was no longer a value meal for the salads. Drink and salad must be purchased separately. To some it may not seem important, however, the discount for a value meal cannot be achieved by buying a salad as a meal. The lack of a meal discount can be important, given that a salad alone is priced comparably to entire Big Mac meal.

3 Consumers with low incomes may be affected most by this; they may not be able to afford the healthy option. On April 25, 2006, McDonald s did launch a campaign for their Adult Happy Meals. They were once again offered for a short time only, until May 22, The new meals offered one of four DVD s in addition to a salad and drink (McDonald s partners with fitness company, 2006). On viewing the rest of the menu, it is difficult to find the healthy alternatives in relation to their other products. Most are only listed with no visual aid, and as in the case of the salads, are sold at a seemingly high price for fast food. Even the dollar menu only contains two healthy options. It appears, when looking at the menu today, that providing healthy alternatives is no longer a priority to the McDonald s corporation. Questionable Advertising Even though these salads and other options were widely publicized as being a healthy alternative to their original menu items, not all were that much healthier than burgers or fries. Using the nutrition table on McDonald s website, analysis of the relative nutritional value of healthy alternatives to their sandwiches can be made. The new salads without any chicken, or even the grilled chicken seem to be the healthiest options. However, when the crispy chicken is added, 200 calories and nine grams of fat are added to the salad. Provided information does not include the nutrition information for the dressing and croutons added to the salad. While providing a choice of healthy salads, there are only three selections of dressing that can actually be considered when looking at the

4 healthiness of the food (McDonald s nutrition guide, 2006). The other three selections add at least as much fat as a crispy chicken piece, and in the case of the Creamy Caesar dressing, 18 grams of fat and 190 calories, which contains more fat than a small serving of french fries. The low-fat yogurt parfait and caramel dip accompanying the Apple Dippers seem to be healthy alternatives, but each of them are packed with as much sugar as an eight ounce serving of Nestea Raspberry Iced Tea (McDonald s Nutrition Guide, 2006). These findings indicate that if the consumer understands which products are truly good, McDonald s does provide a healthy alternative. However, most of these options are not good for you, and can be just as bad as eating a value meal. Even though they eliminated the super-size option at the end of 2004, it is still possible to make a value meal a large for $.40 additional. This seems very similar to how the chain used to offer a super-size meal. The super-size was an option that increased the size of your fry portion to seven ounces and the drink to 52 ounces. Not including the sandwich, choosing this option would be a total of 1165 calories added to your meal. While the Large option is six ounces of fries and a 32 ounce drink. This total would be around 880 calories; a difference of 285 calories. This number may seem like an improvement, but for an individual on a 2000 calorie diet, a large size value meal is going to be over half of the daily caloric intake. Enticing Children Another one of McDonald s advertising concerns is their advertising of food to children. The major issue is not that they are advertising the food to children, but that they are

5 advertising getting a toy with the purchase of a meal. The toy offer has been around since the 1980 s (List of happy meal toys, 2006) and has been used to draw young consumers to McDonald s instead of the competitors by offering a novelty toy of a popular TV show or movie of the time. It is not uncommon for a child to beleaguer a parent into purchasing food at McDonald s instead of one of their competitors; to that child, the quality of the food is not a consideration. The meal itself is not particularly healthy, even when the healthy choice options of apple dippers and milk are present. The lowest amount of calories that can be consumed in a Happy Meal containing a hamburger is 450; and that is replacing the fries and soda with juice and fruit. A link on McDonald s web site showed the percent daily values for such things as calcium and vitamin intake, however, no fat, carbohydrate, calorie, or sodium daily values were listed for Happy Meals and their contents (McDonald s nutrition guide, 2006). Any person over four years of age is considered to be on the 2000 calorie diet, the same intake as a grown adult (Dietary guidelines for americans, 2005). Realistically, if the healthy options are utilized, a healthy lifestyle can be made with the limited food provided in the Happy Meal. Containing only about 25% of your daily caloric intake, around one third of the daily fat intake, and less than one third of the recommended saturated fats in most of the meals, as long as this meal is eaten no more than once a day (and supplemented by a vitamin), it can actually be a part of a balanced diet.

6 However, the Mighty Kids Meal is an upgrade from the original Happy Meal that tacks on additional calories and fat, and in the cases where fries and soda are consumed, these meals can be as unhealthy as a value meal for an adult. Children still get the toy they went to McDonald s for but at the cost of consuming an unhealthy meal. This raises the question of the ethics of promoting unhealthy food to children, using toys as bait. Other Enticements McDonald s has a mascot that is known throughout the world, and is probably one of the most recognizable characters around the world. Ronald McDonald presents McDonald s as a fun place, where children can run freely, and choose whatever food they want. This gives a false impression to the young. McDonald s is focusing on entertainment advertised to young kids to sell food. No food information is even exchanged in many of the commercials. Ronald is usually playing with a bunch of children having fun doing almost magical things. They then go and eat Happy Meals with the latest toys included in the meal. Children do not know that the food is bad for them; rather, they want to go to McDonald s for the fun and excitement. Manipulation is used to make kids buy their food. Fast Food Critics Super Size Me was a recent movie in which a man, Morgan Spurlock, ate nothing but McDonald s food for an entire month. The stipulations were he could only Super-Size when the cashier asked him, he could eat anything McDonald s offered for an entire month, and he had to eat everything on the menu at least once. The movie is more

7 entertainment than anything else, but underneath all of the comedy there are many health facts that can apply to McDonald s (Spurlock, 2006). Each day, he claims, one out of every four Americans visit a fast food restaurant, even though most nutritionists suggest limiting fast food to one time a month. Spurlock even goes as far as describing how much exercise would be required to burn off the calories of a Super-Sized Big Mac meal, which is seven hours of straight walking. At the end of the month, Spurlock gained a total of 24.5 pounds eating nothing but McDonald s, and his liver was deemed damaged (Spurlock, 2006). Spurlock even critiques McDonald s marketing strategy towards children stating that they distribute more toys than Toys R Us, and stating that before most children can talk, they recognize McDonald s symbols. All of these claims can be found at various sections of his website, and many are not referenced as to where he found the information. Most of the links listed on the website are opinion and contain little or no objective information on McDonald s statistics. Fast Food Alternatives Taco Bell incorporates different types of food than the other fast food restaurants on their menu, serving tacos and other southwestern foods. In relation to other fast foods, these tacos and other specialties are lower in fat and calories than their burger counterparts (Taco bell nutrition calculator, n.d.). They even allow the option of swapping out beef filling for steak or chicken in many of their creations. They also provide fresh healthy salsa to any item on their menu instead of sauces or cheese at no extra charge, this allows them to maintain an impression of offering healthy options. However, not all their

8 marketing is for health reasons, and if not careful, a consumer may be drinking and eating more calories than expected. With each Value meal purchased, a value size cup is provided. In relation to other normal meal size drinks, this is by far the largest. Filled with soda, this cup can provide you with well over 50 grams of carbohydrates, most of which are from sugar (Taco bell nutrition calculator, n.d.). This is the unhealthiest part of the value meals, and their drink sizes and information are not placed on their website. Also promoted is a special Mountain Dew blend called Baja Blast. It can only be found at Taco Bell, and is loaded with caffeine and sugar (Taco bell nutrition calculator, n.d.). A recent ad campaign focused on a value meal with tacos and other items to make you full after your normal meal. Taco Bell is known for small meals, and one of the major concerns that consumers seem to have with eating there is not getting enough to eat. While eating a regular meal with a healthy drink can be part of a balanced diet, adding one of these items drastically increases your caloric intake. Though not as much as a burger, these items on the value menu are average around the 170 calorie range, some more or less. However, for the health conscious consumer, Taco Bell does provide healthy options. The stores have pamphlets on the counter to allow the customer to see what the nutrition information on each product is. Convenience Foods Designed For and By Children According to Beatrice Trum Hunter, it is estimated that children and young adults create nearly 200 billion dollars of food and drink sales a year (Hunter, 2002). In relation to that figure, only 10 billion dollars are spent to advertise to these children. That turns out

9 to be a one dollar advertising cost for every 20 dollars made directly from children. It is no wonder that children have become their own target market in the past ten years. Children and young adults also influence nearly 84% of food purchasing power in the home (Hunter, 2002). It turns out that the information from these ads focused towards youngsters is derived directly from sample groups of children. Although it makes sense to sample a market before actually presenting your advertisement, after information is gathered on a product, alterations may be made to the product to appeal to the focus group even more. The children may urge more flavor please; nutrition not as important as taste for a snack mix Such feedback offers food manufacturers valuable insights to modify established foods or in new food-product development. The children's suggestions influence the shaping and reshaping of the food market profoundly (Hunter, 2002). Children also are attracted to unusual shapes or color or food. Fun foods" hold special appeal. Children enjoy different shapes, sparkles, play value, and interactions with foods (Hunter 2002). Foods are designed to make children feel special about a certain product; an example of this would be green colored ketchup. No modifications are made to the product other than changing the color and packaging, yet the children insist on buying it because it is different than the norm. The appearance these foods have taken precedence over their contents. Blue food coloring can turn feces green and blue is one of the favorite colors of children focus groups, causing children to buy the products for just that reason (Hunter, 2002). Dyes such as Yellow 5 have been known to cause hives,

10 and Red 3 has been known to cause thyroid tumors in rats (Food coloring, 2006). Even packaging design will be done with the intent to get children to buy the product. Products that make them feel more grown up can appeal to children more than a big and bulky package. This appeal comes in part with meals that may require assembly of food, or even some slight cooking. Products like Cup-O-Noodles allow children to feel more independent. However, many of these products are not healthy alternatives to a home cooked meal and can cause harm with constant consumption. Instant meals, although quick, do not always provide the proper amount of nutrients to a growing body. Even lunches are being replaced with the Lunchables packaged food. They can contain anything from crackers and deli meats to cold mini pizzas and come with a desert, usually chocolate. Although they offer juice instead of soda, many of these Lunchables, are high in sodium, fat, and calories (Kraft product info, 2007). Many assume such options are a healthy and fun alternative to packing a normal lunch, but by taking a closer glance at the nutrition information we can see that constant consumption of these can be harmful to your health. Parents appear less concerned with health, preferring the convenience of packaged alternatives and the desirability of avoiding confrontations with their children. Most, apparently, would rather choose an easy path with their children, instead of the healthy one. The Response Advertising to influence children s eating habits includes four major groups, sugared breakfast cereals, soft drinks, confectionery, and savory snacks with fast food chains creating a fifth section (Thought for food, 2004). Research by the Food Standards Board

11 (FSB) in the UK, shows that advertising can create preferences in children about what they urge their parents to buy them. Even the amount of snack food advertisements is directly related to the amount of calories consumed by a child. These extra calories consumed by the children have resulted in a doubling of obesity in children 6 years old, and obesity has trebled in 15 year olds in the past 10 years (Thought for food, 2004). Not only that, but type-2 diabetes is one the rise in the UK due to an increase of sugar intake of youngsters. Many of these unhealthy products were marketed with the help of celebrities and sports figures famous to children in the UK (Thought for food, 2004). Recently, Parliament has placed bans on promoting junk food during shows that children are most likely watching, and celebrity junk food endorsements have been completely banned from television. Advertisements in the UK are now scrutinized under laws and regulations such as The Food Safety Act and The Broadcasting Act. They are now using these laws to their advantage to limit the power of advertisers and create new laws which can stop junk food advertising; allowing the children of the UK to become healthier and stronger in the future. One indication that these changes might be having the desired effect is that McDonald s has reported that it is closing 25 of its restaurants in the UK (Marketing food to children, 2005). The UK is not the only place where advertising bans have become an issue. In the 2004 Election, one of the Democratic presidential candidates, Joe Lieberman, made it a standing issue in his campaign to at least make more information evident during commercials. His plan included:

12 Requiring junk food advertisements to include nutritional information that somehow issues a warning to parents, much like movie ads are accompanied by parental ratings. Asking Congress to require restaurant chains to include nutritional information on menus and mini-boards. There already is a bill pending in Congress to do this. Empowering the Agriculture Department to set standards for food sold in schools, primarily vending machines. The USDA currently regulates lunch menus, but there are no limits on what companies can sell kids through vending machines (MSNBC, 2004). This shows that ads promoting unhealthy food are becoming less popular among many of the world s markets, including the United States. Even though Senator Lieberman was not chosen as a presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, his plan received publicity, and may become an important issue in the future (MSNBC, 2004). Conclusion Promotion of unhealthy food through advertisements for fast food restaurants, and marketing plans directed toward children, are proven to cause obesity, among other health concerns, in many of the constant users. Restaurants such as McDonald s provide the illusion of being healthy by promoting newer and healthier foods, even though most of their new selections are not healthy. In the long run marketing strategy, these foods do not receive as much attention as their other foods (such as their value meals or new sandwiches) and even at the restaurant, many of these foods are not easily recognized on the menu.

13 Taco Bell promotes a healthy alternative to other fast foods, and if careful, their products can be utilized in a healthy diet, but when extra items are added, or large amounts of soda are consumed, the nutrition of a meal can drastically change. By promoting toys and fun, McDonald s can sell more to children than would be sold by advertising just the food. Constant toy campaigns for the Happy Meals are used to draw children into eating unhealthy food. McDonald s is not the only company focusing on children in their marketing plans. Many of the new products are developed after being introduced to a sample of children, then adjusting the product to become more appealing to the youth market. Most of the foods that are directly advertised to children are unhealthy, and yet children still pressure their parents to buy them, not just for taste, but for the appearance, strange colors, and packaging. These reactions by children suggest that advertising in these ways, can lead to eating habits that are harmful to health and contribute to serious conditions such as obesity, hypertension, and high cholesterol, issues that are becoming major national and international concerns. Experience in Great Britain suggests that a government determined to regulate advertising to children may have some impact on children s eating behavior and, consequently, children s health. References Buttriss, J., Deakin, K. & Smith, E. (2003 March). Promotion of foods to children to ban or not to ban? Nutrition Bulletin,

14 Dietary guidelines for Americans. (2005). Food and Drug Administration. Retrieved from Food coloring - wikipedia. (2006). Wikipedia. Retrieved April 16, 2006, from Hunter, B.T. (2002 March). Marketing foods to kids: Using fun to sell. Consumers' Research Magazine. Retrieved March 25, 2006, from Kraft product info. Retrieved March 15, 2007 from teid=1&catalogtype=2&searchtext=lunchables&pageno=1. List of happy meal toys - wikipedia. (2006). Wikipedia. Retrieved April 16, 2006, from Marketing food to children. (2005). Lancenet, Thought for food. (2004). Lancenet, McDonald s nutrition guide. (2006). Retrieved from s.com/app_controller.nutrition.categories.kidsmeals.index. html. MSNBC. (2004). Lieberman takes on jelly doughnuts. MSNBC.com. Retrieved March 24, 2006, from McDonald's partners with fitness company. (2006). Business Week Online. Retrieved April 19, 2006 from KO0.htm.

15 Spurlock, M. (Director).(2006). Super Size Me, A Film of Epic Proportions. [Motion picture]. Retrieved March 29, 2006 from Taco bell nutrition calculator. (n.d.). Retrieved from phttp:// TB. Tanner, Adam. (2006). McDonald's to expand healthy menu. EDiets, Retrieved February 12, 2006, from