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Latest News > Media Release

1 May 2009

Obesity Requires Whole of Community Response

By Scott McClellan
CEO, Australian Association of National Advertisers

Anyone serious about tackling childhood obesity needs to carefully examine the underlying evidence before attacking an industry that is critical to generating jobs and promoting competition in a struggling economy.

A fundamental misconception is that childhood obesity is a national epidemic spiraling out of control. In fact, the latest research shows this overworked claim is highly misleading.

Last year an in-depth study by the CSIRO looked at both children’s nutrition and physical activity and found that since the last study in 1995, there has been no significant rise in obesity. It identified 6 per cent of children as obese, compared to 5 per cent who were underweight.

That was backed up this year by research from the University of South Australia showing that while levels of obesity in children rose sharply in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, they have since plateaued.

Nevertheless, any level of childhood obesity should concern us all. Australian parents and health care experts are right to pursue it and to look to governments for a whole-ofcommunity response. National advertisers are doing their part. Under the Responsible Children’s Marketing Initiative, leading food companies have committed to not advertise to children under 12 unless their products represent healthy dietary choices, consistent with established scientific or Australian standards.

The obesity problem can be traced back to changes in our society over the past 50 years. The principal causes are the altered profile of the family, making a traditionally home-cooked meal at the end of the day less likely, our approach to urban planning that has favoured
driving over walking or even cycling, and a more sedentary lifestyle featuring a greater emphasis on electronic entertainment over sport and other outdoor activity.

No causal link between advertising and obesity has ever been established anywhere in the world, as research commissioned by Australian Communications and Media Authority demonstrated last year.

Indeed, in accord with Britain’s communications regulator, ACMA has estimated that advertising accounts for at most only 2 per cent of influence over children’s total food consumption.

Let’s consider the empirical evidence from an actual implementation of an advertising ban. In 1980, the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec banned advertising of energy dense, nutrient poor foods to children under 13 years. Insulated from peripheral advertising
from neighbouring English language provinces, an entire generation of children have grown up without advertising. Yet last December, data examined by Frontier Economics demonstrated that Quebec’s childhood obesity rate corresponds with levels in other provinces. Clearly, if advertising was responsible for weight gain, there should be a marked difference in this demographic.

Putting the question of obesity aside for a moment, there is a strong argument that rather than harming children, exposure to advertising helps them become discriminating in a massmedia, consumer society. This generation of children who have grown up exposed to
extensive media marketing is much more savvy regarding the consumer culture.

The bank of evidence supports the notion that shielding children from marketing will not enhance their ability to make informed decisions in a consumer culture. Research shows that by the age of eight children have an often a withering scepticism of ads and a well developed capacity to view marketing information selectively. They are more likely to be influenced by family and peers - and ultimately, parents have (or should have)
the last word.

This year, new children’s television standards will be gazetted, with ACMA strengthening provisions regulating advertising to children. The regulator has come under a lot of pressure from those with the mistaken belief that advertising is responsible for childhood obesity. In
fact, advertising has minimal impact on expanding the market or consumption of whole categories of food . Rather, it serves as an instrument for industry players to compete for market share within their category.

Eliminating advertising makes it harder for companies to introduce new products, reducing competition and consumer choice. Some may turn to price discounting which can have the effect of increasing total consumption. Indeed, 2003 findings by the US National Bureau of
Economic Research linked lower prices per calorie with high body mass index. So while curbs on food advertising will do no good, they could certainly exacerbate poor diet.

Clamping down on advertising would not only undermine competition but could also impact media-related sports sponsorship and choke the flow of revenue to media channels at a time when the sector can least afford it.

National advertisers make an easy target for a beat-up. But any government policies based on this approach will likely be ineffective, and enormously damaging to the wider economy.

If we are to address social problems such as childhood obesity, we need to look at whole-of-society solutions. Attacking a critical industry is not the way to go about it.

 

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