The disturbing ways that
fast food chains disproportionately target black kids
It's hard
to blame people for craving fast food when they are inundated with advertising
from such a young age. But what’s disturbing is just how far fast food
companies will go to target kids from groups already more likely to suffer from
obesity – including the poor, rural Americans and black Americans.
In a new
study, a team of researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and
Arizona State University found that fast food chains in predominantly black
neighborhoods were more than 60 percent more likely to advertise to
children than in predominantly white neighborhoods. The researchers also
found that fast food restaurants in middle- and low-income areas tended to
direct their ads toward children more often than those in high-income neighborhoods,
and those in rural communities tended to market their products to kids more
often than those in more urban settings
"Fast
food restaurants in black neighborhoods have significantly higher odds of using
kids' meal toy displays to market their products to children compared to
restaurants in white neighborhoods," said Punam Ohri-Vachaspati, the lead
author of the study. "The associations we observe are troubling because we
know that black children are at higher risk for consuming unhealthy diets including
fast food, and have higher prevalence of obesity."
The
Burger Kings and McDonald's of America have long known that dangling toys and
other paraphernalia to children is a choice way to keep them coming back —
or, at the very least, asking their parents to return. But the
study, which analyzed data from more than 6,700 restaurants around the
country, has finally sketched out precisely how this is happening.
More
than 20 percent of all the restaurants, and 31 percent of the chain
restaurants used child-directed marketing -- a category that includes
advertisements with cartoon characters, television personalities, movie stars,
and sports figures, as well as displays with kids' meal toys,
three-dimensional cardboard cut-outs, and play areas.
The
danger of pitching french fries, hamburgers, and other fast foods to kids is
that it can lead to an unbalanced and potentially harmful diet -- not
only in childhood, but in adolescence and even adulthood. Children who eat fast
foods tend to eat more calories, fat, sodium, and sugars, and less fruits,
vegetables, and dairy than those who don't. Eating fast food has also been found to cause higher body fat and
insulin levels in adolescence, and an increased risk of obesity in adulthood.
Already, fast
foods account for too many calories and feed too many children in this
country. Nearly a third of American kids between the ages of 2 and 11 —
and nearly half of those aged 12 to 19 — eat or drink something from a fast
food restaurant each day, according to a study
from 2008. And
fast food accounts for roughly 13
percent of total calories eaten by children and teenagers aged 2 to 18 in the United States.
While the
American love affair with fast food is in some ways subsiding—as seen by fast
food giants like McDonald's, that are struggling to attract customers—some
people are still hooked. A
Gallup poll from
last year found that some 16 percent of people in the country eat fast food
several times a week, while nearly a third still eat it once a week.
Fast food
restaurants blanket the country, but
they are especially ubiquitous in the country's poorer
communities. This reality, which has been
called "food oppression," is a crucial component of a
growing systemic problem in the United States, whereby America's richer communities are eating
better, while its poorer communities are eating worse.
Poor
black communities are especially vulnerable to this phenomenon.
"The
same black communities that suffer more from diet-related diseases, like heart
disease, obesity, and diabetes, tend to consume more fast food," said Dr.
Jennifer Harris, the Director of Marketing Initiatives at Yale's Rudd
Center for Food Policy & Obesity.
In her
research, Dr. Harris has found that individual fast food restaurants, including
Popeye's and Papa John's, "definitely target that audience
[African-Americans]." She said they do this, for instance,
by purchasing ads on channels popular with black audiences like BET.
This
particular study, though it also assessed the frequency with which fast food
companies advertised to specific demographics, did not look at whether the
content of the ads was different depending on the audience.
The
government does not currently regulate marketing practices in the fast food
industry. Chains like McDonald's have launched voluntary initiatives to
improve the quality and nutrition of the foods they offer to children, and
committed to shifting their kid-focused marketing to healthier items. Examples
of industry initiatives include the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising
Initiative, which promises to curb the advertising of unhealthy foods, and Kids
LiveWell program, which is meant to boost to the number of healthy offerings at
fast food restaurants.
"Since
January 2013, 100 percent of our national communications to children under the
age of 12 have contained a nutrition or active lifestyle message,"
McDonald’s told
Businessweek last year. (Industry officials did not immediately respond to requests for
comment.)
But
progress has been limited. So far, most television
advertisements targeted
at children still seem to tout unhealthy foods too, and the bulk of foods
offered to children still offer little
to no nutritional quality. The average child between the ages of 2 and 11 sees nearly
200 commercials for
McDonald's Chicken McNugget Happy Meals on television, and another 23 for
Burger King's Kids Meals each year. Fast food restaurants also still spend
upwards of $700
million each year to
market their foods to children and teenagers.
Given the
public health stakes, it might be time to reconsider whether the industry is
capable of regulating itself.
"The
companies will argue that they can't control it if some people eat more fast
food than others, but at the same time, they're increasing the disproportionate
demand through their marketing," Harris said. "For that reason
regulating marketing in fast food companies is the only way to solve this
problem."
Roberto
A. Ferdman is a reporter for Wonkblog covering food, economics, immigration and
other things. He was previously a staff writer at Quartz.
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