Jess Halliday, editor of foodnavigator.com, wrote this piece on the new campaign against GDA.
Archive for category Food marketing
In a cross-over study, 59 participants were randomly assigned to receive either 100 kcal packs or standard size packages of snacks for one week. After a minimum of a one week washout period, participants received the other form of the snack for a further week. Snack consumption was recorded by participants in a diary. According to the results, participants consumed an average of 186.9 fewer grams of snacks per week when receiving 100 kcal snack packs compared to standard size packages of snacks.
Until March 18th you can dowload the 64 page report “Contemporary Food Trends” on Nutrition Trends for free. Thanks, Hartman Group. The world is a very, very different place than it was 12 months ago. To look back at where we’ve been as well as where we are headed, to try to make sense of life in these uncertain economic times. Consumers are beginning to approach nutrition in critically different ways than in past epochs: Consumers are increasingly looking to specific foods ‘” ideally non-packaged versions of those foods ‘” which are considered to provide nutritional benefits originally obtained from supplements. As a direct consequence of this trend, we are already noting precipitous declines in supplement usage in certain critical categories. Enjoy reading.
The Which? consumer magasin in the UK just published a highly interessting 36 page report called “Hungry for Change?”. It’s about their healthy eating campaign, the demands they set out to government and industry and the progress that been made. Enjoy reading.
For more than 25 years, Quebec has had one of the world’s toughest policies on the marketing of products to children. According to 2004 StatsCan data, the prevalence of obese and overweight children in Quebec is lower than in the rest of Canada. Children in Quebec also eat more fruits and vegetables and less fast food than children in provinces where industry essentially polices itself when it comes to advertising to children.
The fact that an animal’s lifetime is prolonged by decreasing its sugar ingestion is commonly recognized. For instance, why do mice live 40 percent longer when their calorie intake is reduced by half? In a study published in the journal PLoS Genetics, scientists from the Université de Montréal, reveal that sugar in itself is not the key element but the cells’ capacity to detect its presence is. The intricate works of the process of aging are still not clearly defined, but the link between aging and calorie consumption is certainly obvious to researchers.
Children who watch TV for more than two hours a day or are otherwise inactive have a doubled risk for asthma, according to a U.K. study to be published in the journal Thorax.
Lucky Charms busted
Mar 6
A Canadian consumer protection agency has scored another victory against the marketing of sweet snacks to children, successfully prosecuting a Lucky Charms web site that featured the cereal’s leprechaun mascot in animated games.
Today bill that would get junk foods out of schools once and for all was introduced. The bill is likely to be addressed when Congress reauthorizes the Child Nutrition Act, which expires this year.
Grocery-aisle gotchas
Mar 5
Don’t fall for marketing terms that sound like health promises. You can’t always make assumptions about food based on its packaging. Labels don’t just inform, they sell.