{"id":16217,"date":"2020-08-17T16:11:03","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T15:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=16217"},"modified":"2020-08-17T16:11:03","modified_gmt":"2020-08-17T15:11:03","slug":"better-health-more-questions-than-answers-about-the-governments-new-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/education-languages-health\/health\/better-health-more-questions-than-answers-about-the-governments-new-plans\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Better health\u2019? More questions than answers about the government\u2019s new plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK government recently announced its plans for a new package of measures<\/a>, which it hopes will help the nation lose weight. But, with the worst childhood obesity in Europe<\/a>, is it enough to help the younger generation live a healthier future? Dr Mimi Tatlow-Golden<\/a>, Lecturer in Developmental Psychology and Childhood at The Open University and Co-Director of the OU’s Centre for Children and Young People’s Wellbeing<\/a>, shares her thoughts on the ‘Better Health<\/a>‘ campaign.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"

Dr Mimi Tatlow-Golden<\/p><\/div>\n

I have been working with government and non-government bodies in the UK and across Europe, North America, Asia and Latin America for a decade campaigning for changes in policy to stop food marketing to children and young people.<\/p>\n

People often think food marketing isn’t that important because we can just \u2018make healthier choices\u2019, but it really isn\u2019t that easy. Food corporations spend billions on marketing because it works on us and our children emotionally and pervasively. It sets deep social norms and expectations from our earliest years \u2013 even from preschool \u2013 about what kinds of foods are tasty, exciting and fun, and how we use food to celebrate, share and show love to one another. It\u2019s so effective that my research has found children recognise food logos before they know their ABCs<\/a>. In their teens, marketers then link brands to young people\u2019s new-found freedoms and interests via social media, humour and entertainment and recruit young people to distribute marketing content<\/a> \u2013 by encouraging them to post, like and share.<\/p>\n

The new UK government guidelines plan to tackle marketing in digital media, which is a potentially radical and much needed step. I welcome these changes, but there are crucial unanswered questions that suggest we have a long way to go.<\/p>\n

First \u2013 why are we waiting? The restrictions are due to come in 2022. The government has been consulting on this for years. The time for waiting should be over and there\u2019s no benefit to children by delaying.<\/p>\n

Second \u2013 what kinds of advertising are in scope? The wording of the government announcement doesn\u2019t make this clear. What about all the under-the-radar approaches in social media? \u2013 sponsored posts by celebrities on Instagram, YouTubers dropping in a mention of their favourite biscuit, drink, chocolate or crisps brand. This \u201cbrand activation\u201d market is three times the size of the formal, paid-for-advertising market.<\/p>\n

Third \u2013 what will be defined as \u2018unhealthy food\u2019? Current UK regulations allow brands to market \u2018healthier\u2019 options such as artificially sweetened soft drinks and fast food meals with vegetables or fruit instead of chips (an option rarely availed of!). Yet the World Health Organization doesn\u2019t recommend allowing marketing to kids for artificially sweetened drinks. With the UK’s sugar tax<\/a> in 2018, almost all companies replaced much of the sugar content in their products with artificial sweeteners; but this teaches children\u2019s taste buds to expect drinks to be sweet and it may also be damaging to health, especially for children and adolescents. <\/a>Looking at past experience, the form of the regulations means we\u2019ll still be surrounded by marketing for highly processed foods, just with the recipe tweaked so they sneak in under the guidelines.<\/p>\n

Fourth \u2013 what happens when marketers aim for so-called healthier options? In early 2020, I contributed to a paper<\/a> investigating the response of teens to unhealthy, healthy and non-food related advertising. We measured teens\u2019 attention (tracking how often and for how long they looked at ads), memory (their free recall and prompted recognition) and social responses (would they ‘share’ this post? How did they view peers who did?). The findings showed that teens respond most strongly to unhealthy food marketing. It appeals to their independent identities and social lives with friends. Just changing the recipe isn\u2019t going to be enough, we need to change our food system.<\/p>\n

Our unhealthy food cycle can only be broken by creating a whole new healthy food system, which feeds the body and brain. Importantly, it also needs to be sustainable and feed the earth. The systems we have at present \u2013 from agriculture to advertising \u2013 are deeply dysfunctional. Ultimately, actions need to be put in place with greater speed and force, so that we can start seeing some demonstrable results and our children can flourish.<\/p>\n

Find out more<\/strong><\/h2>\n

With the OU’s OpenLearn’s<\/a> free course,\u00a0Children and young people: food and food marketing<\/a><\/p>\n

About studying Education, Childhood and Youth<\/a> and Psychology<\/a> at the OU<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The UK government recently announced its plans for a new package of measures, which it hopes will help the nation lose weight. But, with the worst childhood obesity in Europe, is it enough to help the younger generation live a healthier future? Dr Mimi Tatlow-Golden, Lecturer in Developmental Psychology and Childhood at The Open University […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":16218,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1525,1531,1640],"class_list":["post-16217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-news-home","tag-news-home-ou-home-wels-faculty-of-wels","tag-ou-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}