Page 2357 - Week 07 - Thursday, 17 August 2006
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Over 75 per cent of food advertisements shown during children’s viewing time are for unhealthy foods of lower nutritional values, such as confectionary, sweetened breakfast cereals and fast food. We all know how impressionable children are and the evidence shows that food advertising can adversely influence the food preferences of children between the ages of two and 11.
Despite this evidence the federal government has still refused to ban junk food advertising during children’s programs. Advertisements directed at children often use sophisticated marketing techniques such as giveaways, competitions, celebrity endorsements, animation and jingles to increase a child’s desire to purchase the product. Food advertisements often give a distorted message and advertisements are often misleading and do not provide clear nutritional information. Evidence shows that a child less than eight years of age does not have the cognitive ability to be aware that he or she is being manipulated.
It is obvious that television food advertisements influence children’s food choices and increase the tendency for them to pressure their parents for particular products. That undermines the attempts of parents to provide children with a healthy diet. The eating habits of Australian children show that they are consuming a high percentage of energy dense, high fat, high sugar and low fibre foods. This is consistent with the majority of food advertised during children’s television viewing times.
An argument that federal health minister Tony Abbott and Prime Minister John Howard have used repeatedly in this debate is that parents are responsible for what their children eat. Parents ultimately have a say over what ends up in the shopping trolley and what is eaten during and between meals. They believe it should be up to parents as to what their children eat and what commercials they are free to watch. That, of course, all sounds very reasonable.
However, parents do not necessarily have a choice over the commercials to which their children are exposed. They may give permission for their children to watch a program on a commercial station, but they have no knowledge necessarily of what advertisements will be aired during that program unless they sit right through the program with their children. As I have previously said, it is more likely that advertisements during those programs will be advertising unhealthy, fattening junk food.
Mr Abbott and Mr Howard fail to acknowledge the endless pressures that face the modern family. Many families now stick to limited and familiar meals. They increasingly eat in front of the television and find it more difficult to find time to cook a meal. Unfortunately, we cannot expect to return to the 1950s household where a cooked family meal was the norm. More and more families, for example, are pressed for time in the afternoons and therefore often turn to pre-prepared meals after a long day’s work rather than the more healthy choice of a meal including fresh fruit and vegetables.
From our own experiences I am sure we all know that children are exceptionally skilled at pestering parents and whittling them down to get what they want. How many of us have either witnessed or experienced ourselves the nagging of a child in a supermarket where the child asks again and again for a certain treat in an increasingly agitated and demanding way? All of us in this place, like many of our constituents, work long hours
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