1974 Joan Gussow is It Fair to Sell Sugar to Children

8/3/2019 1974 Joan Gussow is It Fair to Sell Sugar to Children

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IS IT rAIR TO SELL SUGAR TO CHILDREN?Joan Guesow Panel-- "Seeing is Believing?"Instructor March 8, 974-Program in NutritionTeachers CollegeColumbia UniVOrsityNew York# N. Y.

It Is my understanding that a good deal of the ad-..vertlaing of the RcOonald Hamburger Chain Is local ratherthen national; so I don't know whether you here in hio havehad the opportunity to see the commercial we have in New YorktIn which a man goes up to the counter of a McDonald's ham-burger store, opens his mouth wide, points Into $t, nd says"AHHHHHHHHH)1". After a few puzzled moments, the countermansuddenly realizes that the man wants a Big Mao and smilinglygives it to him.*Well, there was a story in the Now YorkTimes several weeks ago to the effect that some man had calledthe Better Business Bureau with a complaint. It seems he hadgone into a McDonalds, pointed to his mouth and said "AHHHHHHHHH"and gotten laughed out or the 6tore-- he wanted to file acomplaint for misleading advertising.

Aside from being funny, I think that story illustratestwo important things about advertising 1) hat it does in-fluence people's behavior; and 2) that complaints made aboutit are often focussed exclusively on such limited questionsas whether a particular ad is directly misleading.


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by American air conditioners alone Is equal to the total elec-trical energy used by the population of the Chinese People'sRepublic.)

Just as we consume more than our share of the world'sgoode, we also consume the majority of the world's advertising.Last year the 210 million people in he United States were exposedto some 23 billion dollars worth of advertising-- that's 3115per capita-- while the 3 billion plus people who make up theOther 94( of the world's citizens consumed only 12 and a halfbillion dollars worth-- thatsabout 54 apiece. Altogether, we61 of the world's people consume 651 of the world's advertising.The'fact that.wb are.:subjected to the majority of the world'sadvertising and consume a disproportionate share of the world'sthings are not unrelated. facts; for we have achieved our dazzlinglevel of consumption at least partly as a result of advertising.In small and brilliant book People of' Plenty, firstpublished some 20 years ago, Historian David Pntter points ou tthat advertising in its flamboyant American manifestationwas a esponse to an astonishing level of ' abundance. In sometimes and places, he points out, the advertising notice servedthe simple Purpose of informing an already interested buyerthat a certain product was available. In America it had anotherrole! for a unique combination of natural and human resourcesproduced an economy In which the potential supply of goods couldreadily outstrip public demand for them. "In a society orabundance," Potter writes, "the Droductlve capacity can supply


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new kinds of goods faster then society in the mass learns tocrave these goods or to regard them as necessitles. It hisnew productive-capacity is to be used.o. , society must beadjusted to a new set of drives and values in which consump-tion Is aramount.* The instrument of this consumption-adjust-ment was--and is-- advertising. Advertising in'America rapidlybecame an instrument of persuasion, the only'institution wehave had, Potter points out, for Instilling new needs, fortraining people to act as consumers, for oreatinm wants suffi-oient to exploit the country's productive capacity.

Potter saw advertising as being, like the school and thechurch, a major social influence, and he raises some unsettlingquestions about the erfect on a society of having as one of itsmajor instruments of social control an institution whose-soleaim ii o promote consumption. I cannot deal with those questionstoday; but I have gone on about the underlying economic functionof advertising in order to emphasize one basic fact of whichwe must all be aware. The purpose of advertising at this timein this country is to stimulate wants and to instill needs--to promote consumption beyond need-- oeo,verconsumption.

Yet we are coming into a ime-- we are, indoedp in themidst of a time-- when overconsumption (translated as waste)of any 6f the world's Increasingly scarce resources is a sine--and Imean the moral outrage that word implies. What do we doabout the habits. of' overconsumption which advertising ha sencouraged and continues to encourage now that the world Isbeginning to run short of many of the things It needs to survive.


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Now do we unlearn abundance in the face of the hungry world'sglowingly critical need for a shatoeof our wasted energy andour wasted food? What mechanisms do we have for keeping oureconomy going while asking the American people as citizens ofthe world, to put lees of a drain on that world's increasinglyscarce resources?

Suoh a question is particularly poignant-- and urgent--where food is concerned. Waste of anything In a world of finiteresources JO wrong-- waste of food is obscene. Last-Septemberthe Wall Street journal published an article entitled "TheGrowing Threat of World Famine", inwhich the author, an agri-cultural development worker, showed that if we and the otherdeveloped nations bid for the world's tightening supplies offood grains we could drive prices high enough to make star-vation inevitable for a number of hard-pressed developing coun-tries. Keep in mind that the $115 we invest per capita in ad-vertising is somnewhat more then the yearly per capita Incomeof the world's 800 million poorest people.

the author of the Well Street Journal article suggesteda massive public service advertising campaign in this countryaimed at saving food, urging such voluntary steps as reductionIn the size of restaurant portionst immediate commencement ofplanned diets on the part of potential dieters, a reduction fromtwo to one pro-dinhor drink-- thus saving half of the grainused for alcohol. In September the need tctake action wasurgent, It is how March. I have seen no massive effort tosave food.


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Margaret ('ead once pointed out that it was difficultfor overfed Americans to keep in mind that people elsewherewere starving because we were always having the experience ofrefusing food. It Is also difficult to keep hunger in mindin an American supermarket or in front of an American tele-vision screen. Americans are encouraged to waste food-- andto deal with it frivolously-- at least in part by the verynature of the food products advertised and the 6ppeaoIs madefor them. Novelty, runt sparkly colors and shapes, irresis-table sweetness for children; and sexual or social triumph foradults-- these are the characteristics to be sought in food--not repletion, true sociability or survival.

Rising prices may change the American diet somewhat andmay also change somewhat the nature of the appeal. It is notdifficult to forsee a move to add vitamins and minerals to thesesame fun foods in order to be able to advertise them as "nutri-tous". But we should not be led by our "sacrifices" at thesupermarket to believe that we are now sharing the world's suffer-ing, I am not at all unmindful of the plight or the poor--and even the not-so-poor In this country. Their condition isunforgiveable in the richest country the world has ever known.But as for the rest of us-- as Robert McNamarat President ofthe World Bank pointed out, recently-- there is a differencebetween relative and absolute poverty* We may by now be spending25-35% of our incomes for food, and since we are not used todoing that, we will suffer when prices go up, But If ou arespending 80% or more of your Lhcome on food-- as are millions


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of people in the developing countrins.- then whe-r prices goup you do not merely suffer, you starve and die.

So the broadest problem advertising ralsae for me isone to hihch I have no present glimmer of a solution. Namely,what do we do about advertising the medium of plenty In a timeof .growing shortages? Now do we prevail upon advertising, themedium of self-lndulgence, to teach setf-restraint?

The second problem to which I would like to nddressmyself is the effect of advertising on nutritional habits.This problem has two aspects, one arising specifically outof advertising's promotion of overconsumption; the other arisingout of advertising's economic imperatives-- and their effecton the nature ot the products advertised. As I have said,advertising in this country promotes overconsumption in orderto allow for the continued growth of the economy, Now it isone thing to promote overconsumption of such things as care,houses, appliances, clothing, airplane rides and so forth.Consumers can purchase such goods without running up againstany personal biological limits (although as we are beinning tolearn there may be environmental limits), If you have a bigenough closet you can have a pair of shoes for every day inthe year. But food Is a unique commodity.. vrconsumptionof food can occur only within narrow limits, even if obesityis accepted as a consequence. Unless food is to be purchasedto be thrown away (as in American steak houses) it cannot beendlessly acquired.


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123'could be done about thief r for thoogh* 1 have gioen it a lotof thought, I have not yet resolved the dilemma of how therood industry could remain economically viable if t were tomarket only simple nutritious foods in he quantities whichwould keep everyone adequately red.

The second thing the rood industry has done to keepgrowing in the face of a relatively fixed demand, is to in-vent non-caloric foods. These permit a sort of Dorian Greyapproach to gluttony; aided by indigestible "bulking agents"like methyl cllulose and non-caloric sweeteners (like cyclamatesof fond memory) we can be tempted to consume far beyond needwithout becoming as fat as our overindblgence wo~ld normallyimply. Unfortunately this delicate balancing process isInsufficiently finely tuned at the moment. The beat estimatesare that by age 50 one-third of the men and one-half of thewomen in the U. S. re 20% or more over their beet weight--i.e. -ato

And f nally, as a thirO measure .to.keep he marketexpanding even faster than the population (or their waistlines)novelty and ouerprocessing must be' jsed to coax people tobuy less food value for more money. Since it is in the natureof a business to take the simplest legal route to improvingprofits, the obligation of a food manufacturer, as one advertisingman has pointed out "is o market foods he can persuade peopleto buy for the purpose of returning a profit on his investment.He is not to be blamed for perrerring "run-in-food" over nutri-tional value as a buying incentive. It Is en easier less


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complicated sellirq PrnpoPitJni." r$r as I pointed 6utt entli'r,if nutrition becomes popular, the manufacturer is not to beblamed for stickino a ro,,, miles wor.h or vitamins into hisfun foops and doesiatinq t.hei. nutritioos. What we, as pro-fesslonals muit keep in eind, however, is that in a countrywhose maJor identified nutrition problems are the result oftoo many calories, too much fat, too much refined carbohydrate--and probably too little fiber- simply pumping vitamins andminerals into foods too high in calories, fat and refinedcarbohydrate-- and too low in fiber-- is not a solution tonutritional problems.

Now if you ask an advertising man, he will tell youof course that these products are brought out in response toconsumer demand-- he will say that you cannot sell a productthat the public does not want, In fact the rate of productfailure is phenomenally nigh, A recent article in BusinessWeek pointed out that between 1970 and 1980, 120,000 nowproducts woulo be.. i troducod into..supermsrOets ovf pvhIch.lO0,Op00would fall# In other words about 10,000 0P the 12#O00 newproducts which reach supermarkets every year, will be withdrawn,.Not all of these are food products, remember, but a considerableportion of them area Are these products brought out in responseto a real public need? Clearly in the long run, the productswhich succeed are thosefor which at least a weant exfst6-- orcan be created, by advertising, And of course one thingadvertising has taught us very effectively is how not to be


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..able to distLnguish our.wants from our .needs#There ts almost nothing new to be said on the nature

of the products food processors devote their money to promoting.Advertising is expensive-- especially teobvsision advertising.The foods that will be most promoted are inevitably those withthe lowest Ingredimnt cost and the highest mark-up-- especiallyib his era of rapidly rising raw material costs. As a result,as has often been pointed out, it Is the least nutritious foodswhich are advertised most and the most nutritious foods whichare advertised least# The point hardly needs illustration--but I will give ue, A recent survey of potato prices foundthat whereas potatoes could be had for 10o a pound, in a 20pound bag, potatoes in chips were 51.10 a pound, the potatoesin Crisp-i-taters were 51.47, end the potatoes in Chlusters were11.?1 a pound. I use potatoes as an example simply becausethe Potato growers and marketers are attempting to correctsome of the imbalance in advertising between the processedand the unprocessed by advertising olain old potatoes, Bu tthe balance is still wildly offt, Pis is illustrated by some recentstatistics from Advertising !. (n he S7?2 million spent onfood advertising in 1972, farm producer groups, promoting large-ly foods rather than rood products, accounted ror around 5120million or one-sixth of the total. The American Dairy AsonclatLor,the largest single advtetiser among the rood associations listedby A Ae.9,pent almost $9million dollars on advertising In1972. But 112 million was spent promoting Or. Pepper.


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126If dvertising isunderstood as a mechanism which

encourages ovarconaumption-- or at best consumption of themost highly processed and immediately appealing foods, thenit will be clear that advertising cannot be easily reformedto sell what we think of as good nutrition,

Nevertheless some things seems worth .trying. nnething that seems worth trying is o require some nutritionalinformation in all food commercials-- the approach Judy Cookewas working on developing at the FTC before her tragic death.Second, we need to develop some kind of economic mechanismwhich can help remedy the imbalance in the kinds of foodsthat got advertised, We need to see to It that the goodfoods which are not now advertised-- or are only minimallyadvertised On television-- and which are rich in the nutrientswe are most apt to lack got "sold" to the American peoplewith as much appeal and sophistication as are currently devotedto the selling of useless if not actually harmful snack foods,VItemocracy is-o -work, -the least wd qer'"do'ror'It6 citinhdis to see to it that they have equal exposure to the thingsthey n to know, as well as being exposed to the thingssomeone wants them to know in order to make a profit.And finally, some reform must be made of advertisingto children, Children, of course, see more "adult" televisionthan they do children's television, which has led mai of Usconcerned about food advertising to recoqnize that we cannotbe content with reforming only those ads beamed specifically


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127otohildre.n..everthe.less, ch.Ildreoin.- p.pe.oially. the littleatand most vulnerable children-- are more likely to watch TValone, without the(hopefully) modifying influence of an adult,on what it called the Kid Vid Chetto, on Saturday and Sundaymornings. During these hours, children are bombarded withads designed especially for them-- dazzling and expensive 30or 60 second dramas Intended to convince theA that they needor want certain products.

Over the years since Robert Choate first criticizedthe advertising of breakfast cereals to children, there havebeen some reforms in children's advertising. The number ofcommercial minutes allowed on children's television was reducedleast year from 16 to 12 (which Is still 2j mimutps more thanis allowed on adult prime time), So now there are fewercommercials per hour, they are somewhat more clustered, vitamincommercials have left the children's hours and the directappeals to sweetness have been somewhat reduced. Neverthelessthere are still two dozen or so commercial messages directedat children each viewing hour, and an average of 3/4 are forecible products, largely sugared and colored breakfast cereals,candy, highly sweetened beveragesr, cookies, pastries and soforth.

Since knowledge about nutrition for the non-professionalis not so much a body of facts, but a body of behaviors inregard to food, It is clear that making certain foods seemhighly desirable is a way of teaching nutrition. On this


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basis, itmust be emphasized, the use or. expeneively producedand appealing television commercials to promote highly sweetenedsnack-type food to preliterate children-- to the almost totalexclusion of simple foods such as fruits and vegetables grains,beans, meats, dairy products and the like-- is promotingpoor nutrition. It is really quite simple, If the televisionwatching child ate the foods and only the foods he is beingurged to eat on television, he would be malnourished, Sincetelevision Is ow perhaps the most powerful single educativeforce In the community-- occupying more of preschoolers timethan any other single activity except sleep and more or theschool child's time except sleep and school, it Is lear thatsomething must be done,

What that something is is not yet clear, A number orindustry groups have formulated sets of principles regardingadvertising to children which if adhered to would produceutopia, Unfortunately, as interpreted, they have producedthe Saturday and Sunday morning disaster we have now. Theoutside critics of children's advertising have generqlly focussedon trying to s.et up rules which Wicald .make ads, less misleading.and more inrormative, and which would help children distin-guish commercials from program-- ie. help them understand whenthey are being "sold". Clearly It would be useful to reducethe amount or emotional appeal and Improve the informationallevel or food ads to children; but some or us believe that lessemotionalism and more accuracy are not enough, ror example,where food ads are concerned, it could be argued that the harm


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129does not arise from the ract that Children are being, misledabout non-nutritious products, but that children are beingsold non-nutritious products. It may be a good ad for sugar,clearly defined as an adp but If It is an effective ad (andif it is not the advertiser is not going to waste his moneyrunning it), it Is going to sell sugar. At-which point theissue becomes is t right to sell sugar to'children?

Some of us do not believe it is. We do not believethat children, especially very young children, can be made into"informed" consumers-- choosing rationally not to eat certainproducts because they have been made aware of possible longrange harm from a diet composed of such products. Currentlyefforts are being made to develop a code for advertising tochildren that will have some teeth in it. I am a member ofthe consumer-representative panel which recently submitted aworking version of a code to the rTc. Among the provisionsis ne which says 1) that no product containing over a certainlevel of sugar shall be advertised to children on Saturday andSunday mornings# and 2) that Ur such a product is advertisedduring family TV hours, when large numbers of children arewatching, it will have to carry a warning about the possibleharmful effects of large amounts of sugar.

Whether or not this particular provision of this parti-cular code is dopted, some action Is going to have to be taken--end soon. If we believe that eating patterns established ihchildhood are important, we have got to give mothers some help.We cannot allow the most powerful teaching.medium the world


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has ever known to push poor eating habits, and then counton a generation of notritionally-ignorant and/or misguidedmothers to battle it s effects,

rood advertising Is our responsibility as professionalsand as citizens, What I have tried to convey to you todayin broad outline is how we have to begin to think aboutadvertising In elation to our problems as professionals, Asnutrition educators we need to attend to food advertisingbecause it. is, on the whole, working against us.- and becausefood advertisers appear to know how to do what we do not knowhow to do, change eating habits. food advertising is urbusiness as citizens because we pay for it. The 1722 millionspent on food advertising in 1972 Plus all the other millionsspent on the development of products which never even reachthe marketplace are part of the ptice we pay for food products.In a im e of rising prices and growing food shortages, It stime we Osgan to ask ourselves whether we are getting what wepay for,

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1974 Joan Gussow is It Fair to Sell Sugar to Children