Beauty and the Banana: it is a commercial promotion, not a public health campaign

Abstract

This commentary examines the recent Disney-Dole "There's Beauty in Healthy Living" initiative and the implications of using character licensing to market produce to children. While the idea of promoting healthy foods to children is appealing, it is critical to consider the ethics of marketing to children-and whether, in fact, these commercial promotions deliver when it comes to improving public health.

The Power of Packaging: A Scoping Review and Assessment of Child-Targeted Food Packaging

“…Cartoon characters, premium offers, appeals to "fun", bright colours, unusual product names or flavours, and direct references to "kid" in the product or brand name all represent persuasive techniques for cueing children and parents to the fact that a packaged food is specifically for kids. The proliferation of "fun" kids food throughout the supermarket has been observed by several studies, with concerns raised over the impact of these marketing strategies on children's dietary habits, health, relationships with food, and negotiations with commercial culture [23,27,30,66]. Food packaging has been shown to influence young children's taste preferences [32,62,64] and product preferences [42,49,56], just as has been found in studies tracking the impact of food marketing (more broadly defined) on children's diets [7,67].…”