‘Junk’ food is too normal: Have your say

Posted on 18 November, 2015

We’re bombarded with food advertising every single day.

Most of this advertising for unhealthy (high sugar, high fat, high energy and low nutrient) food. As adults, with the cognitive ability to make reasoned, logical choices, it’s our responsibility to make our own food choices.

Companies selling ‘junk’ food can market all they want; it honestly doesn’t bother me. My food choices are my food choices.

When it comes to my children, however, I don’t feel the same way. When I wander through a supermarket or shopping centre with them, take them to the movies or a community event, we are bombarded with advertising and marketing of chips, chocolate, lollies, soft drink, juice and other not so nutritious foods.

Bombardment is not an over exaggeration. An audit of food advertisements to ACT children, conducted by the Heart Foundation earlier this year, revealed that nearly four out of five food and drink advertisements aimed at children in shopping centres, supermarkets and near schools promoted unhealthy products. Here are some more stats to ponder over:

• 78 per cent (735 instances) of food and drink marketing in 61 locations across Canberra was for unhealthy foods or drinks
• 80 per cent of food and drink marketing in five major shopping centres was for unhealthy products
• 77 per cent of food and drink marketing in 13 supermarkets was for unhealthy products
• four of the 13 supermarkets audited provided one or more confectionery-free checkouts
• 86 per cent of marketing at six sports venues was for unhealthy food and drinks
• four out of nine sporting organisations indicated that their major sponsors were associated with unhealthy food and drinks.

Now, I’m not your strict, stuck-in-the-mud mother who never lets my children eat ‘junk’ food. I enjoy a tub of hot chips or a chocolate bar along with the next person. I believe in balance.

I teach my children that it’s all food, and that some foods are just better for our bodies than others. I do, however, clearly understand the consequences of what a poor diet has on our bodies long term, so I strategically limit how much ‘junk’ food is available to my children. If it’s around, I let them eat it, but I work hard at not having it around very often.

Just so you know that I’m normal, my five year old is currently sitting next to me eating his breakfast and trying to read this article. This is him: “’Junk’ food?! Mmmmm… I love ‘junk’ food!” Mother of the year right here.

Marketing of ‘junk’ food to children is different. Children don’t have the full ability to make good decisions about food; they’re still learning.

They’re also almost always going to prefer sweet, salty and fatty food over other foods, so they’ll make food decisions based purely on what is easy to eat and what tastes great. Hence why your four year old is unlikely to choose broccoli over a donut.

I believe that it’s the parents responsibility to choose WHAT and WHEN the child eats. I teach this principle in my Feeding Fussy Toddler’s Workshop. This means that the parent is responsible for providing safe and nutritious food to their children as often as necessary.

Once this food is offered to the child, it’s the child’s responsibility to moderate WHAT OFF THEIR PLATE that they eat. Let them eat if they’re hungry and stop when they’re full.

Parenting should also involve teaching children healthy eating habits and fostering a healthy relationship with food. The passing on of skills for cooking, food preparation and purchasing in the family home is an important part of growing up.

As a parent and a nutritionist, I certainly find the current environment difficult to moderate my kid’s intake of certain foods.

There are weekends, for example, where they’ve been offered and they’ve happily accepted lollies, juice, biscuits, chips and more from family, friends and being at social occasions or events.

Every time I take them grocery shopping they ask to buy certain foods that are displayed at the ends of the isles or at the checkouts. We drive past fast food; they ask for it. We see a billboard for donuts, they ask for one.

I spend a lot of my time saying “no” and other things like: “We’ve had plenty of cake lately, I think we can take a break from it now.” Or “Lets go and find some of our favourite pieces of fruit to eat.”

Marketing of ‘junk’ foods, in my opinion, adds to the burden of this kind of food being presented as a ‘normal’ part of our day, when it shouldn’t be.

Massive billboards and promotional displays everywhere we go doesn’t really represent how these foods should be treated within our diets; as a sometimes food that’s only eaten at special occasions.

When I’m teaching parents about feeding they’re children healthy food, one of the things I emphasise is the fact that children need to see and have vegetables on their plate every single day.

If you want your kids to eat them every day, they must feature every day. Healthy food needs to be normal. It needs to be in front of them, offered to them and regularly eaten by their caregivers in front of them every day. I wonder, if we marketed vegetables in the same way we do ‘junk’ food if kid’s would eat differently?

With that being said, I believe that it’s the whole community’s responsibility to create an environment that supports, encourages and promotes healthy eating; making the job of the parent easier to execute in day-to-day life.

It would certainly make my roll as a mother much easier if there wasn’t ‘junk’ food in front of my children’s faces everywhere we went.

If you have an opinion on this topic, I encourage you to take part in the ACT Government’s consultation and have your say on food and drink marketing in Canberra, particularly those aimed at children.

So far, 80% of the community is supportive of the Government taking steps to reduce marketing of unhealthy foods to children in Canberra.

I, for one, would love healthy options at sporting venues and events, free drinking water stations at sporting fields, healthy menu options for kids at cafes and restaurants and a reduction in the myriad of junk food promotional displays in the supermarkets.

These are just a few of the thoughts I included as a submission on behalf of my company The Healthy Eating Hub. Please go to Time to Talk and take the survey if you feel the same.

If you’d like some healthy eating advice specific to your family, please make an appointment to see myself or one of my team! We specialise in simple, fresh, balanced advice that’s just right for you.

Image of ‘colourful doughnuts‘ via Shutterstock