Clare Kermond
June 14, 2012
The Age
Children are being bombarded by messages for unhealthy food as brands use sports sponsorship to slip through regulatory loopholes, according to new research.
A study into the effect of food and drink companies sponsoring sports has sounded alarms about the links between this lucrative arm of marketing and children’s unhealthy eating habits.
According to the Australian study, most children (65 per cent) can correctly name at least one sponsor of their favourite sports team or athlete; many (39 per cent) felt good about sponsors because of this link; and many (41 per cent), especially boys, were more likely to buy a sponsor’s products.
The Australian study, a collaboration between the University of Sydney and the Cancer Council of New South Wales, noted that the two main industry codes for marketing food to children, by the Australian Food and Grocery Council and the Australian Association of National Advertisers, do not include sponsorship in their definition of media.
According to the study, more than half of the children surveyed, aged 10 to 16, could remember at least one sporting event from the past year with a food or drink sponsor. Out of about 200 sponsors correctly remembered, most were companies that made sports drinks and soft drinks, followed by fast-food chains.
Current fast food marketing of sport includes McDonald’s sponsorship of Little Athletics Victoria and Basketball Victoria’s Hooptime program, as well as KFC’s sponsorship of T20 Big Bash cricket.
The director of health strategies for the Cancer Council of NSW and one of the study’s authors, Kathy Chapman, said the study showed that sports sponsorship was an easy avenue for junk food companies to get to kids and sent a mixed message to children about what they should be eating.
“When you see children wearing T-shirts with the logos and getting vouchers, stickers on sports equipment, it’s all those little things that add up to reinforcing the brand. The food industry is quite prepared to look like they’re doing the right things, but they’re not doing that really thorough job of reducing children’s exposure to wrong sorts of foods,” she said.
Researchers also interviewed parents, with most very supportive of policies that would limit unhealthy food and drink sponsoring of both elite and children’s sports. Most parents said they would support restrictions on sports sponsorship even if it meant higher sports fees.
Karina Langelaan, campaign manager with lobby group The Parents Jury, said sponsorship of sport was an insidious form of marketing to children, particularly when it was around major sporting events.
“What we would say about all sports advertising and sponsorship is that sports advertising should be a showcase for healthy living, not a showcase for fast food and sugary drinks.”
Ms Langelaan said self-regulation in the advertising and food industries failed to address sponsorship.
Scott McClellan, chief executive officer of the Australian Association of National Advertisers, said the association’s codes covered advertising, not sponsorship arrangements between advertisers and sporting or other groups.
Mr McClellan also said the link between the advertising of food and obesity or other conditions that may increase the risk of cancer was “hotly disputed”.
He said the Cancer Council would be much more effective in tackling cancer if it targeted more of its donor money to medical research that addresses the causes of and possible remedies to the disease.
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