Creating an environment in which children in the United States grow up healthy should be a high priority for the nation. Yet the prevailing pattern of food and beverage marketing to children in America represents, at best, a missed opportunity, and at worst, a direct threat to the health prospects of the next generation. Children's dietary and related health patterns are shaped by the interplay of many factorsâ€"their biologic affinities, their culture and values, their economic status, their physical and social environments, and their commercial media environmentsâ€"all of which, apart from their genetic predispositions, have undergone significant transformations during the past three decades. Among these environments, none have more rapidly assumed central socializing roles among children and youth than the media. With the growth in the variety and the penetration of the media have come a parallel growth with their use for marketing, including the marketing of food and beverage products. What impact has food and beverage marketing had on the dietary patterns and health status of American children? The answer to this question has the potential to shape a generation and is the focus of Food Marketing to Children and Youth. This book will be of interest to parents, federal and state government agencies, educators and schools, health care professionals, industry companies, industry trade groups, media, and those involved in community and consumer advocacy.

The childhood obesity epidemic is an urgent public health problem. The most recent data available show that nearly 19 percent of boys and about 15 percent of girls aged 2-19 are obese, and almost a third of U.S. children and adolescents are overweight or obese (Ogden et al., 2012). The obesity epidemic will continue to take a substantial toll on the health of Americans. In the midst of this epidemic, children are exposed to an enormous amount of commercial advertising and marketing for food. In 2009, children aged 2-11 saw an average of more than 10 television food ads per day (Powell et al., 2011). Children see and hear advertising and marketing messages for food through many other channels as well, including radio, movies, billboards, and print media. Most notably, many new digital media venues and vehicles for food marketing have emerged in recent years, including Internet-based advergames, couponing on cell phones, and marketing on social networks, and much of this advertising is invisible to parents. The marketing of high-calorie, low-nutrient foods and beverages is linked to overweight and obesity. A major 2006 report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) documents evidence that television advertising influences the food and beverage preferences, requests, and short-term consumption of children aged 2-11 (IOM, 2006). Challenges and Opportunities for Change in Food Marketing to Children and Youth also documents a body of evidence showing an association of television advertising with the adiposity of children and adolescents aged 2-18. The report notes the prevailing pattern that food and beverage products marketed to children and youth are often high in calories, fat, sugar, and sodium; are of low nutritional value; and tend to be from food groups Americans are already overconsuming. Furthermore, marketing messages that promote nutrition, healthful foods, or physical activity are scarce (IOM, 2006). To review progress and explore opportunities for action on food and beverage marketing that targets children and youth, the IOM's Standing Committee on Childhood Obesity Prevention held a workshop in Washington, DC, on November 5, 2012, titled "New Challenges and Opportunities in Food Marketing to Children and Youth."

Children's health has made tremendous strides over the past century. In general, life expectancy has increased by more than thirty years since 1900 and much of this improvement is due to the reduction of infant and early childhood mortality. Given this trajectory toward a healthier childhood, we begin the 21st-century with a shocking developmentâ€"an epidemic of obesity in children and youth. The increased number of obese children throughout the U.S. during the past 25 years has led policymakers to rank it as one of the most critical public health threats of the 21st-century. Preventing Childhood Obesity provides a broad-based examination of the nature, extent, and consequences of obesity in U.S. children and youth, including the social, environmental, medical, and dietary factors responsible for its increased prevalence. The book also offers a prevention-oriented action plan that identifies the most promising array of short-term and longer-term interventions, as well as recommendations for the roles and responsibilities of numerous stakeholders in various sectors of society to reduce its future occurrence. Preventing Childhood Obesity explores the underlying causes of this serious health problem and the actions needed to initiate, support, and sustain the societal and lifestyle changes that can reverse the trend among our children and youth.

This book explores the concern about the dramatic increase in childhood obesity in the United States which has prompted Congress to request that the Federal Trade Commission conduct a study of food and beverage marketing to children and adolescents. The results of that study - an analysis of 2006 expenditures and activities by 44 companies - are presented here. Included are not only the traditional measured media - television, radio, and print, but also activities on the Internet and other new electronic media, as well as previously unmeasured forms of marketing to young people, such as packaging, in-store advertising, event sponsorship, and promotions that take place in schools. Integrated advertising campaigns that combine several of these techniques and often involve cross-promotions - linking a food or beverage to a licensed character, a new movie, or a popular television program, dominate today's landscape of advertising to youth. The data presented in this book tell the story of food and beverage marketing in a year just preceding, or early in the development of, industry self-regulatory activities designed to reduce or change the profile of such marketing to children. Furthermore, this book, which compiles information not previously assembled or available to the research community, may serve as a benchmark for measuring future progress with respect to these initiatives.

A practical guide to organic eating for readers who live in urban environments challenges popular misconceptions about organic foods in today's grocery stores, shares advice on how to create an organic kitchen, and provides seasonal recipes.

Journey to five continents and see the world of sustainability and conscious eating with new eyes--featuring 100 pages of plant-based recipes to better nurture ourselves and the planet Thirty years ago, Frances Moore Lappé started a revolution in the way Americans think about food and hunger. Now Frances and her daughter, Anna, pick up where Diet for a Small Planet left off. Together they set out on an around-the-world journey to explore the greatest challenges we face in the new millennium. Traveling to Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe, they discovered answers to one of the most urgent issues of our time: whether we can transcend the rampant consumerism and capitalism to find the paths that each of us can follow to heal our lives as well as the planet. Featuring nearly seventy recipes from celebrated vegetarian culinary pioneers-including Alice Waters, Mollie Katzen, Laurel Robertson, Nora Pouillon, and Anna Thomas-Hope's Edge highlights true trailblazers engaged in social, environmental, and economic transformations.

Forty years after her mother's work changed the way we eat, Anna Lappé's Diet for a Hot Planet changed the way we think about food production and global warming. Fifty years ago, Frances Moore Lappé's Diet for a Small Planet sparked a revolution in thinking about the social and environmental impact of what we eat. Ten years ago, her daughter, Anna Lappé, controversially picked up the conversation with Diet for a Hot Planet, examining another hidden cost of our food choices: the climate crisis. Lappé predicted that food system-related greenhouse gas emissions would be catastrophic unless we radically shifted the trends of what we ate and how we produced it. She exposed the political interests with a stake in our food system, and foresaw the spin food companies would use to avoid system-wide reform. She visited the pioneering farmers of a future food system where good could outweigh harm, demonstrating the potential of sustainable farming. She also offered six eternal principles for a climate friendly diet. This measured and intelligent call to action is the perfect companion to the fiftieth anniversary edition of Diet for a Small Planet; like her mother before her, Lappé reminds us that food, and our perilously large food system, is still a powerful access point for solutions to the climate crisis.

What drives children as consumers? How do advertising campaigns and branding effect children and young people? How do children themselves understand and evaluate these influences? Whether fashion, toys, food, branding, money - from TV adverts and the supermarket aisle, to the internet and peer trends, there is a growing presence of marketing forces directed at and influencing children and young people. How should these forces be understood, and what means of research or dialogue is required to assess them? With critical insight, the contributors to this collection, take up the evaluation of the child as an active consumer, and offer a valuable rethinking of the discussions and literature on the subject. Features: • 14 original chapters from leading researchers in the field • Each chapter contains vignettes or case examples to reinforce learning • Contains consideration of future research directions in each of the topics that the chapters cover. This book will be relevant reading for postgraduates and advanced undergraduates with an interest in children as consumers, consumer behaviour and on marketing courses in general as well as for researchers working in this field.

Looks at the way corporations and advertisers target children as a profitable demographic, as well as their methods for getting past parental safeguards to make products of all kinds appeal directly to even the youngest children.

Although encouraging people to eat more nutritiously can promote better health, most efforts by companies, health professionals, and even parents are disappointingly ineffective. Brian Wansink’s Marketing Nutrition focuses on why people eat the foods they do, and what can be done to improve their nutrition. Wansink argues that the true challenge in marketing nutrition lies in leveraging new tools of consumer psychology (which he specifically demonstrates) and by applying lessons from other products’ failures and successes. The key problem with marketing nutrition remains, after all, marketing.