Food freaks: save us from these cereal nutters

Friday April 25, 2008

Campaigners want to restrict the promotion of so-called “unhealthy foods”. Brian Monteith reports.

“It’s G-r-r-r-eat” being Tony the Tiger. Or Coco the Monkey, Snap Crackle and Pop – and let’s not forget the Honey Monster.

The life of a fictional cartoon character is dead easy, with no worries about where the next meal’s coming from or how to do long division without a calculator. You get to go to the moon, fly on magic carpets, dance on exotic beaches, play the bagpipes and swing about in lush jungles. Then the grocer puts the light out and you can have sweet dreams about the latest toys in the McDonald’s kids’ deal or the buy one get one free offer on the sherbet dabs. So long as you’re not in a 24-hour convenience store life is a peach.

But that could all change, for Nigel Griffiths, Labour MP for South Edinburgh, is piloting his private members’ bill through Westminster at the moment – the Food Products (Marketing to Children) Bill – and the future for Tony and his chums could, in the UK at least, be bleak.

Active

Forget the fact that Tony and other food mascots often promote active lifestyles, giving away footballs and encouraging kids to take up sport, forget the huge amount of work done by Ronald McDonald in organising and funding the training of 11,500 kids’ football coaches in the last five years – cartoon characters used to promote so-called unhealthy foods are the latest target in the onslaught against obesity.

Tony the Tiger was born in 1952 when Kelloggs held a competition for a character to promote their sugar frosted flakes – he has been roaring his famous slogan on our tellys ever since. Other cereals from Kelloggs and competing food companies soon joined in employing the age-old advertising technique of using a fictional or real character, from a salty seaman to a cheeky chipmunk, to endorse a product and extol its virtues.

While the Bill seeks to ban advertising of so-called “unhealthy foods” until after the 9.00pm watershed and from child-centred websites altogether, its supporters typically don’t think that goes far enough. The Consumers’ Association – a more inappropriate name I cannot think of given this organisation’s record in trying to restrict consumer choice – wants a more robust approach that includes controls on the packaging as well. If Which? had its way Tony would be consigned to the marketing history books. Griffiths apparently agrees.

Tasty

Let’s forget for the moment the fact that Frosties are a wonderfully tasty treat that encourages children to actually eat SOMETHING before going to school (when I was an MSP studying the evidence for having universal free school meals a regular argument was how often kids came to school with NO BREAKFAST).

Let’s put aside that any food taken in moderation will not, in itself, make anyone obese. Let’s ignore that the designation of what is a healthy or unhealthy food is open to interpretation and abuse. And forgive me for not getting into the whole debate about just how real the obesity threat is – there’s not enough space here. The question I have is simple enough.

If the promotion of children’s foods has been around since the Fifties – and I recall it myself in the Sixties and Seventies – why was childhood obesity not a problem then?

Could the answer not be that it’s not the consumption of food such as Frosties and Sugar Puffs or the occasional Big Mac that is the issue but the significant change in children’s lifestyles that has led to many of them being less active?

Walked

As a kid I walked four miles a day going to and from school, I played sport, I clambered over hills in the neighbouring park, I swam, I played hospital tig in the school playground – oh, and I learned Highland dancing. I ate like a horse but I was thin. Now I drive most places, have stopped playing fives (gammy knee) and no longer sweat it out at the local disco. Now I’m fat.

Kids today are likely to be driven to school, the playing field has most likely been sold off, the school playground is now a car park for teachers and extra-curricular sports are unheard of.

Tony the Tiger might as well be redrawn and renamed as Sammy the Scapegoat. He and his friends are an easy target for a politician looking for the next notch on his nanny’s truncheon.

Politicians like Nigel Griffiths make me sick. As a parent I found the most important word I had to learn was ‘NO’. When it comes to Griffith’s private members’ bill that’s the very word our parliament should be saying.

Brian Monteith, former MSP for mid Scotland and Fife, is policy director for The Free Society