Health

Food and drinks companies target schools with ads by back door

by LotusFlower | December 29, 2008 at 10:24 am

362 views | 14 Recommendations | 7 comments

Schools in the UK often get educational materials sent to them free by various companies.

A report from the Children's Food Campaign acuses the companies of advertising unhealthy foods 'by the back door'.

One company asked kids to create a poem to show that a bag of crisps (chips) was healthier than an apple.

Some have commented that a good teacher wouldn't be as lazy to just use materiual sent in without vetting it first.

Companies including Vimto and Britvic, the company behind Tango, have been criticised for targeting children at schools with adverts disguised as "educational material" – such as creating a poem in praise of a soft drink and promoting a bag of crisps as healthier than an apple.

A new report, called "Through the back door", argues that some food and drink companies are using curriculum packs to advertise their products to children at school.

The Children's Food Campaign report claims that two-thirds of the curriculum packs surveyed contained company logos, two-thirds contained promotions for a product and two-thirds contained misinformation.

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oneness

at 10:56 on December 29th, 2008

This is true all over the world and caregivers must take responsibility when they themselves do not know how tosay no to these strategies that have already harmed the way we live and what we eat

LotusFlower

at 11:06 on December 29th, 2008

Yes - its too easy sometimes to just take something down off the shelf and use it just because its there. some parts of the materials are good and could be easily adapted to get rid of advertising by a good teacher.

jessica.lam

at 12:41 on December 29th, 2008

At least teach the kids that apples are healthy, but don't say that they keep the doctor away.....

I've never encountered blatant infiltration by corporations in the school system while I was in school. Definitely no poems about chips.

mtammas

at 11:15 on December 30th, 2008

Parents need to be involved in stopping this, too. I wonder what Jamie Oliver, champion of healthy food in UK schools, would have to say about this.

emmex

at 13:23 on December 30th, 2008

In italy we havent these little can of fancy juice.

emmex has contributed a photo to this story.

Tavi Groban

at 18:15 on December 30th, 2008

Well, the story with this photo is that it was the first day of Ramadan .. our holy month .. and everyone was really excited and happy .. and I just wanted to capture some of the traditional things in this month =)

Tavi Groban has contributed a photo to this story.