$1.6 Billion Spent on Kid Food Marketing

Forty-four food and beverage marketers spent $1.6 billion to promote their products to U.S. children under 12 and teenagers 12 to 17 in 2006, officials said.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission study on food marketing to children and adolescents said that the landscape of food advertising to youth is dominated by integrated advertising campaigns that combine traditional media, such as television, with previously unmeasured forms of marketing, such as packaging, in-store advertising, sweepstakes and the Internet. These campaigns often involve cross-promotion with a new movie or popular television program.

Cross-promotions tied foods and beverages to about 80 movies, television shows, and animated characters that appeal primarily to children, the report said.

The new FTC study shows that there is a lot of marketing aimed at children, and let’s be perfectly clear it was not spent urging kids to eat fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, Margo G. Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit health advocacy group based in Washington, said in a statement.

The food industry spent a billion-and-a-half dollars urging children to eat fast food, sugary cereals, soft drinks and other unhealthy foods.