Children are highly susceptible to food advertising and marketing. Picture: Brendan McDermid
According to the Healthy Living Alliance’s (HEALA) programmes manager Nzama Mbalati, new research demonstrates that child-directed marketing strategies are used on most South African breakfast cereals that have low nutritional value.
“New research from University of the Western Cape, led by researcher Alice S Khan, exposes how breakfast cereals, which directly market to children, have a lower nutritional value and 96% of the cereals studied had a nutritional health claim. There is an urgent need for regulations to restrict this predatory marketing and to introduce clear front-of-package warning labels on unhealthy products so consumers can make informed decisions,” Mbalati said.
Last week, Mbalati led a quarterly panel discussion alongside HEALA’s leading policy and legal researchers Petronell Kruger and policy and research manager Angelika Grimbeek.
The conversation, which was chaired by Newzroom Afrika’s news anchor Michelle Craig, gave members of the media an opportunity to engage in some of the topical issues HEALA advocates for daily.
These included ensuring that the food and beverage industry adhere to regulations, are ethical in their advertisements and marketing campaigns and are transparent in their dealings by ensuring that front of food package labels (FoPL) are clear on the contents of their products in order to encourage consumers towards adopting healthy food choices and avoid non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
“The research shows that marketing and advertising is a key factor in promoting the consumption of ultra-processed products. Children are highly susceptible to these ads. Food and beverage advertising has remained unregulated even though children’s rights are guaranteed in the South African Constitution,” Mbalati said.
According to HEALA, during the study, researchers assessed the nutritional composition of 222 breakfast cereals, direct child marketing strategies (i.e., illustrations, characters, fantasy, role models), and indirect marketing to children’s parents (nutritional claims and health claims).
The study found that, breakfast cereals with direct child marketing strategies had lower levels of protein and fibre and higher total sugar and carbohydrate content than those without direct marketing strategies.
Mbalati has called for the National Department of Health (NDoH) to enforce strict regulations against unethical practices by some in the food and beverage industry as well as cereal producers.
“HEALA is calling for the National Department of Health (NDoH) to ensure that there is strict regulation on the marketing of products with front of package warning labels, as this marketing has the potential to influence purchase and consumption of unhealthy products, and until now, has been highly pervasive and unregulated in South Africa.
“Research shows that mandatory restrictions are necessary to ensure that products do not have child-directed marketing. Promises made by the industry to self-regulate have not been effective in reducing targeted marketing to children,” he said.