In Europe, food manufacturers have signed up to ‘responsibility pledges’, promising no added sugar, preservatives, artificial colours or flavours and not to target children.
So why are they using tactics banned in the West in the developing world? There, they have created ultra-low-cost products with higher levels of salt, sugar and saturated fats. Filmed in Brazil, India and France, we investigate the new tactics of brands like Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Domino’s Pizza.
Organisations combatting a fast food diet
Brazil
Alana Institute
Alana is a socio-environmental impact organization that promotes children’s rights to integral development and fosters new forms of well being. Therefore is organized into three fronts: the Alana Institute, the AlanaLab, and the Alana Foundation.
Alana Institute – a non-profit civil society organization – was born with the mission to “honor the children” and is the origin of all the work that began in 1994 in Jardim Pantanal, a vulnerable community in the city of São Paulo’s eastern outskirts. The Institute today has its own programs and with partners – all of which you can find out more about below – and is supported by the income from an endowment fund since 2013.
INDIA
Centre for Science and Environment
Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) is a public interest research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi. CSE researches into, lobbies for and communicates the urgency of development that is both sustainable and equitable.
We believe that the scenario today demands using knowledge to bring about change. This is what we aim to do. The challenge, as we see it, is two-pronged. On one hand, millions live within a biomass-based subsistence economy at the margins of survival. The environment is their only natural asset. But a degraded environment means stress on land, water and forest resources for survival. It means increasing destitution and poverty. Here, the opportunity to bring about change is enormous. But it will need a commitment to reform in the way we do business with local communities.
On the other hand, rapid industrialisation is throwing up new problems: growing toxification and a costly disease burden. The answers will be in reinventing the growth model of the Western world for ourselves, so that we can leapfrog technology choices and find new ways of building wealth that will not cost us the earth.
This is the challenge of the balance.
Our aim is to raise these concerns, participate in seeking answers and – more importantly – in pushing for answers and transforming these into policy and so, practice. We do this through our research and by communicating our understanding through our publications.
We call this knowledge-based activism. We hope we will make a difference.
Reports
New lab study on food by CSE exposes efforts to sabotage public health
Report (2012): Junk Food Targeted at Children
by Chandra Bushan
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Advergaming
Advergames play with nutrition by making fast food rewarding
Advergaming is a relatively recent approach to advertising that overcomes many of the limitations of traditional advertising. But advergames are increasingly being used by fast food companies to target children by rewarding play with unhealthy food products.
A simple definition of an advergame is one that promotes a particular brand, product or message by integrating it into play.
In its earliest form, advergaming was simply passive advertising within a game, such as billboard placement in a car racing simulation. But it quickly evolved to the point where advertising became integral to the game, and brands (particularly food brands) began developing their own games.
Now, the game is the advert, immersing the player-customer in an interactive, personalised and extended interaction with a brand and its messages.
These games are designed to engage players to such an extent that they form strong relationships with the brand and consume more of it.
What the research says
The proliferation of food-related advergaming has been followed by research into the extent of its effects.
Results suggest young people actively engage with advergames and are more likely to eat unhealthy foods after playing them. While the same also holds for healthy advergames, they are much less common.
With the advent of high-resolution game capabilities on smartphones and other mobile devices, advergames have moved far beyond something people play at home on their console or desktop computer.
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