This is a YouTube video titled "Dr. Mark's Minute - How Television Marketing is Making Our Children Sick" created in February 2012. It features Ask AI Mark discussing the childhood obesity epidemic, focusing on the disparity between public health funding and the food industry's extensive marketing efforts targeting children through various media channels.
How are we fighting this childhood obesity epidemic? Is it working? Well, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is the largest organization working to address the epidemic of childhood obesity. They spend $100 million a year on public education and programs. Sounds great, right? Well, how long do you think it takes the food industry to to spend that exact amount, $100 million, on marketing processed and junk foods to children. Four days, that's it. Four days, $25 million a day. By January 4th each year, the largest funder fighting the battle against obesity in America is out of cash, leaving the food industry the rest of the year to push their drugs. The average child sees about 10,000 ads for junk food on television a year. the food industry spends $13 billion a year on marketing their products to kids. Adding to the television onslaught, there are now product placements, and this is much more subtle. They're in toys, they're in games, they're in educational materials, in songs, in movies. They're with celebrity endorsements and what they call stealth campaigns. We're using word of the mouth techniques, and text messaging, and the internet, and Facebook. The food industry proudly uses terms such as stealth, and viral, and guerrilla marketing, to describe their practices on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and in product placements in popular TV shows like American Idol, where the judges are drinking Coke thanks to a multi-million dollar deal with the show. The worse the food, the more companies spend on marketing. What are we gonna do about it?
