1
The impact of commercial media on the health
behavior of children and adolescents

• Dr Abdul-Halim Joukhadar
• Regional Advisor/ Health Promotion Education
• Division of Health Protection and Promotion
• W H O Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office
  Cairo
• HED_at_emro.who.int

2
Globalization, Media and Mass-communication

• Media and mass communication, along with
  globalization, are
• playing an ever-increasing role in contemporary
  life, shaping our modern culture.
• influencing lifestyles and consumption patterns
  worldwide.
• promoting the homogenization of values and
  lifestyles among younger generations.
• Mass media are to a great extent fueled by
  commercial enterprises which have as their goals
  influencing individuals' purchasing decisions.

3
Values, lifestyles and global marketing

• Values and lifestyles play a central role in the
  global marketing.
• Multi-national corporations track and respond to
  shifts in the needs, wants, and lifestyles of
  their target consumers through
• Psychometric research
• Lifestyle research
• Brand image research

4

African Football Cup Cairo January 2006
5
(No Transcript)
6
Standardized global marketing pooling huger
resources for marketing

• Multi-national companies have adopted
  standardized global marketing, creating central
  advertising production banks and guidelines for
  brand images and promotions, with regionally
  appropriate advertisements.
• This led to pooling huge budget resources for
  marketing research and advertisement
• More aggressive advertising to achieve greater
  penetration of new markets where regulatory
  environment is loose or nonexistent.

7
Exploiting childrens limited cognitive ability
to understand commercial persuasion

• The heavy marketing directed towards young people
  ,especially young children, is driven largely by
  the desire to build and develop brand awareness
  and recognition, brand preference and brand
  loyalty.
• Heavy marketing directed to children is
  exploitative young children do not yet possess
  the cognitive ability to comprehend the
  persuasive intent of advertising

8
(No Transcript)
9
(No Transcript)
10
(No Transcript)
11
(No Transcript)
12
Use of psychological expertise to market
products to young children

• An upsurge in the use of psychological knowledge
  and research
• to more effectively market products to young
  children to persuade them to want advertised
  products
• to influence parents purchasing decisions
  (Pester power).

13
Unfair practices undermining parental authority

• Parental authority is undermined by wide
  discrepancies between what parents tell their
  children is healthful to eat and what the food
  and beverage marketing promotes as desirable to
  eat.
• Many parents have limited proficiency in
  nutrition, while food companies have extensive
  expertise in persuasive techniques, and huge
  resources to influence childrens food choices
  such as cartoon characters, contests,
  celebrities, and toy give-away.

14
Manipulating developmental concerns

• Teens want to identify with their peer group and
  this represents a vulnerability factor.
  (Adolescence Vol. 33, No. 131). The attraction to
  prestige brands develops in adolescent years
  because it's a time when peer pressure and
  fitting-in are very important.
• Adolescents still can be persuaded by the emotive
  messages of advertising, which play into their
  developmental concerns related to appearance,
  self-identity, belonging, and sexuality.
• Marketers manipulate Teen's desire to be "cool,"
  to sell their wares, a concept that's been
  offered to marketers by psychologists.

15
(No Transcript)
16
(No Transcript)
17
(No Transcript)
18
Impact of Entertainment Violence on Children

• Aggressive attitudes and behaviors are learned by
  imitating observed models children learn by
  observing, imitating, and making behaviors their
  own.
• Although exposure to media violence is not the
  sole factor contributing to aggression,
  antisocial attitudes, and violence among children
  and adolescents, it is an important health risk
  factor
• Over 1000 studies conducted by leading public
  health figures point overwhelmingly to a causal
  connection between media violence and aggressive
  behavior in some children (Congressional Public
  Health Summit July 2000)
• Over 30 years of research, point out that viewing
  entertainment violence can lead to increases in
  aggressive attitudes, values and behavior,
  particularly in children.

19
Entertainment violence increases propulsion to
violence

• Children exposed to violence are more likely to
  assume that acts of violence are acceptable
  behavior.
• Entertainment violence feeds a perception that
  the world is a violent and mean place.
• Prolonged viewing of media violence can lead to
  emotional desensitization toward violence in real
  life. Happy slapping and teacher bating are but
  examples.
• Viewing violence increases fear of becoming a
  victim of violence, leads to self-protective
  behaviors and a mistrust of others.

20
(No Transcript)
21
(No Transcript)
22
Video games and violence

• Video games that portray violence are an ideal
  environment in which to learn violence
• They place the player in the role of the
  aggressor
• Reward him or her for successful violent
  behavior.
• Allow the player to rehearse an entire behavioral
  script, from provocation, to choosing to respond
  violently, to resolution of the conflict.
• Video games have been found to be addictive
  children and adolescents want to play them for
  long periods of time to improve their scores and
  advance to higher levels. Repetition increases
  their effect.

23
SOCIAL IMPACT OF MUSIC VIOLENCE

• In a testimony to the Senate the American Academy
  of Pediatrics pointed out that during the past
  four decades, rock music lyrics have become
  increasingly explicit -- particularly with
  reference to drugs, sex , violence and even of
  greater concern, sexual violence.
• With the advent of Music TV channels, violent
  lyrics with sexual connotations, violence,
  sexism, drug-oriented, or antisocial behavior are
  transmitted , including scenes that degrade
  women,
• A handful of experimental studies indicate that
  music videos may have a significant behavioral
  impact by desensitizing violence and by making
  teenagers more likely to approve of premarital
  sex.

24
Body image dissatisfaction and advertising

• Thinness has not only come to represent
  attractiveness, and to symbolize success,
  self-control and higher socioeconomic status. The
  average size of idealized women (as portrayed by
  super models), has become progressively thinner
  at 13-19 below physically expected weight.
• Researchers suggest that this thin ideal is
  unachievable for most women and is likely to lead
  to feelings of self-devaluation, feelings of
  depression and helplessness. Body image
  dissatisfaction and eating disorders are more
  prevalent among females than males.

25
17.5 / 11.1 18.8 / 27.3 22.7 /42.2
26
Impact of Food Marketing to Children

• The Institute of Medicine of the US National
  Academies released in December 2005 a report
  entitled" Food Marketing to Children and Youth
  Threat or Opportunity? The main findings of the
  report are the following
• a) There is strong evidence that television
  advertising of foods and beverages has a direct
  influence on what children choose to eat. Food
  advertising on television can make children crave
  junk food.

27
Impact of Food Marketing to Children

• b) The dominant focus of food and beverage
  marketing to children and youth is for products
  high in calories and low in nutrients, and this
  is sharply out of balance with healthy diets.
• c) Marketing approaches have become multi-faceted
  and sophisticated, moving far beyond television
  advertising to include the Internet, advergames,
  strategic product placement, and much more.

28
Impact of Food Marketing to Children

• d) Turning around the current trends in
  children's diets and in marketing will require
  strong and active leadership and cooperation,
  from both the public and private sectors.
  Industry resources and creativity must be
  harnessed on behalf of healthier diets for
  children.
• These findings are equally valid elsewhere in the
  world due the increasing influence of
  globalization and market economy under the ever
  growing influence of multi-national companies.

29
(No Transcript)
30
Unhealthy diet and overweight are risk factors

• The world health report 2002 describes in detail
  how, in most countries, a few major risk factors
  account for much of the morbidity and mortality,
  and for non-communicable diseases five of these
  global risk factors are closely related to diet
  and physical activity.
• Food marketing has been one of the areas of focus
  of the Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity
  and Health, adopted by the 57th World Health
  Assembly in May 2004.

31
Regulatory environment of marketing food to
children

• WHO conducted a review in 71 countries on the
  regulatory environment and identified gaps,
  specifically in four main areas
• Existing regulations do not recognize food as a
  category in need of special consideration from a
  public health standpoint.
• There are many differences in the regulatory
  environment between countries and also wide
  variations in the degree of enforcement.
• While there are plenty of ethically-based
  guidelines, there are fewer specific restrictions
  on the timing, content and form of marketing
  campaigns targeted at children.
• Non-traditional forms of advertising targeted at
  children such as marketing in schools,
  sponsorship, Internet-based techniques and sales
  promotions are less regulated than television
  advertising to children.

32
Obesity and chronic disease risk

• Food advertisements targeted to children through
  multiple media channels contribute to childrens
  choices about foods, beverages, and sedentary
  pursuits and may have a strong influence on their
  tendency toward increased obesity and chronic
  disease risk.
• Childhood obesity involves significant risks to
  physical and emotional health. Overweight or
  obese teens are increasingly at risk for type-2
  diabetes, once called "adult-onset" diabetes and
  once rare in kids.
• Obesity prevention involves addressing the
  factors that influence both eating and physical
  activity.

33
Percentage of persons 20 years or older who are
overweight or obese in selected EMR States (
Stepwise S. System)
Country Males Females
Egypt 2005 60.0 72.2
Iran 2005 37.0 48.5
Iraq 2006 63.6 69.6
Jordan 2005 65.5 77.0
Kuwait 2006 78.0 81.7
Lebanon 2002 60.0 53.0
Saudi Arabia 2005 64.0 70.0
Syria 2004 52.9 58.8
34
Percentage of students 13-15 years who spent 3
hours or more during a typical day watching TV,
playing computer games, chatting with friends or
were engaged in other sedentary activities
35
Percentage of students 13-15 years at risk of
overweight or who are overweight )GSHS data)
36
The Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity
and Health

• The Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity
  and Health provides a comprehensive framework for
  addressing child and adolescent overweight risk
  factors and identifies 4 strategic areas for
  action
• (a) Education, communication and public
  awareness Appropriate public knowledge on the
  relationship between physical activity, diet and
  health, on energy intake and output, on diets and
  patterns of physical activity that lower the risk
  of non-communicable diseases, and on healthy
  choices of food items provides a basis of good
  policy
• (b) Marketing, advertising, sponsorship and
  promotion Food and beverage advertisements
  should not exploit childrens inexperience or
  credulity. Messages that encourage unhealthy
  dietary practices or physical inactivity should
  be discouraged, and positive, healthy messages
  encouraged.

37
The Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity
and Health

• (c) Labelling Consumers have the right to
  accurate, standardized and comprehensible
  information on the content of food items so that
  it is conducive to making healthy choices.
  Governments may require information on key
  nutritional aspects, as proposed in the Codex
  Alimentarius Guidelines on Nutrition Labelling.
• (d) Health claims As consumers interest in
  health grows, producers increasingly use
  health-related messages. Such messages must not
  mislead the public about nutritional benefits or
  risks.

38
WHA Resolution 60.23 (May2007)

• The Sixtieth World Health Assembly (WHA60.23)
  requested the Director General to take the
  necessary actions to promote initiatives aimed at
  implementing the global strategy on the
  prevention of non-communicable diseases with the
  purpose of
• increasing the availability of healthy food, and
  promoting healthy diets and healthy eating
  habits,
• promoting responsible marketing including the
  development of a set of recommendations on
  marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to
  children, in order to reduce the impact of foods
  high in saturated fats, trans-fatty acids, free
  sugars or salt in dialogue with all relevant
  stakeholders, including private sector parties
• building and sustaining contact with the mass
  media in order to ensure continued prominence in
  the media of the issues related to the prevention
  and control of non-communicable diseases.

39
Media literacy , regulatory responses and parent
responsibility

• The health sector should play a leadership role
  in advocating for comprehensive preventive
  actions, and regulatory responses promoting
  healthy diets and physical activity among
  children and young people. Heath should be put in
  its rightful place at the centre of further
  policy development concerning the marketing of
  food to children.
• The educational system should develop appropriate
  life skills based preventive responses, such as
  media literacy education, to counter balance the
  adverse impact of commercial media on the health
  of children and adolescents.
• Parents should be encouraged and empowered to
  assume their responsibility and contribute
  actively to reverse the situation through
  pressuring the food industry to take corrective
  actions.

40

• The food and beverage industry , as did the
  Tobacco industry , will continue to argue that
  advertising does not influence the dietary
  behavior of children and young people, then why
  are they spending billions of dollars on
  advertisement to promote products of low quality
  nutrition?
• Neither multi-nationals are stupid to spend such
  colossal amounts on publicity, nor are consumers
  stupid to believe them !!!