A recent U.S. News and World Report article asked the question do TV food advertisements promote unhealthy diets? It was a good question. To be honest, I’d never thought about it. For one thing, I try not to watch commercials (thank goodness for Tivo!)
But, during this last episode of Glee (yes, I’m a Gleek), I decided to pay attention to the commercials. And. WOW! I was completely shocked by what I saw.
Here’s how it broke down. During the first set of commercials, I saw Red Baron Pan Pizza and Burger King BBQ Ribs. While pizza in moderation is fine, there’s little that’s fine about Burger King’s BBQ Ribs. The sauce is made of high fructose corn syrup! (I’m sure you saw that one coming!) And, even worse, there are 1,290MG OF SODIUM! That’s more than HALF the amount of sodium that you should eat in one day.
The only fresh veggies that I saw during the first GLEE break were the lettuce and tomato. And, considering how those usually look in fast food restaurants, they can hardly be considered FRESH!
And, this was just the first set. The next set was even worse: Coca Cola (HFCS to the max!), Hershey’s Smores, more fast food burgers, steak and Sonic ice cream. And, later, we had M&Ms (here come your artificial colors!), Domino’s, BK Slurpie, Subway, McDonalds…and the list goes on and on and ON!
So, in my humble opinion, YES, TV food ads promote unhealthy diets. What do you think?
Absolutely! But then again most really healthy foods (like fresh fruits and veggies) don’t come from large corporations with big advertising budgets like some of the advertisers you mentioned…they come from lots of different individual farms who can’t afford to pay the premium prices to advertise on TV. Such companies as BK & McDonalds are in competition against one another and sell directly to the public…so they depend on enticing individuals to buy their product and advertising to present new products to draw people in to their establishments.
Larger farming operations (with enough production and income to potentially support any advertising expense at all) generally don’t sell directly to the public the way a mom & pop operation might do at the local farmers market…so they don’t need to sell John Q. Public on their products…they just need to sell themselves to the stores so that they are available for the consumers who ARE interested in buying healthy foods.
Earth Fare is an exception, but most grocers will get a particular product from one supplier…for instance all their oranges from one grove…so the choice isn’t the end consumers directly.
The people who really WANT to eat healthy and are committed to do so will seek those products out without seeing an ad on television showing a cut open watermelon or plate of steamed asparagus. Everyone already knows about these foods…it’s just a matter of if you choose them or not. So the return on investment wouldn’t be nearly as great for an organic farmer to buy a tv spot as it is for Sonic.
Wow…I guess I was fortunate to learn about this stuff in college (many years ago). It’s really amazing when you look at how advertising has infiltrated every aspect of our lives. If you are interested in learning more, try reading Eric Schlosser’s “Fast Food Nation”. He talks a good bit about the “unholy alliance between Hollywood and the fast food industry”.
I’m sure that TV encourages encourages poor dieting habits, but that is the least of my worries about TV. The moral values (or the blatent lack thereof) is far more dangerous than an M&M commercial. We simply do not watch TV. No cable, Satalite, or antena. It’s been 4+ years and we don’t miss it.