In Australia, manufacturers of unhealthy foods are dominating supermarket shelves and junior sports clubs as they market their wares to children. The study also found that manufacturers of unhealthy foods were using sophisticated internet marketing techniques to target children and often claimed the foods had nutritional benefits despite being classified as unhealthy by the federal Department of Health's Guide to Healthy Eating.
The study found that supermarket marketing, in particular with claims of nutritional benefits, were designed to use children to pressure parents into buying particular products.
Research director Kaye Mehta said internet marketing used games and competitions designed to gather children's ideas to design better marketing in future."It's like a cheap ad agency," she said.
KFC has sparked outrage from health experts by offering Christmas gift cards. A $500 card could purchase a fat banquet of 14 buckets of "Original Recipe'' chicken pieces, containing 4.5kg of fat and 1.8kg of saturated fat; 63 maxi serves of "Popcorn Chicken'' (2.8kg of fat and 1.25kg saturated fat) or 78 "Original Works Burgers'' (1.6kg fat, 592g saturated fat. About 55 per cent of adult Queenslanders, and about a quarter of children aged 5-17, are considered obese or overweight. An average of 60 people are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes every day around the state.
Preventative Health Taskforce chair Professor Rob Moodie said "It's marketing gone berserk. This stuff is fine if it's just once a month. But if it's twice a week, or $500 a year, it's completely different." Prof Moodie said aggressive fast-food marketing was the last thing parents needed as they struggled to teach children proper eating habits. "We know that advertising for fast food just works. Never before in the history of man has so much food been made so available for so many. We're shoving more calories down our throats than ever before.''
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