food & activity environments

the problem

Our surroundings affect how healthy we are. Yet, too often, our communities don’t provide the conditions necessary to eat well and be active. In many cases, this leaves adults and kids with easier access to fast food than fresh produce, more broken sidewalks than safe parks, and a greater chance of getting sick than living well. And the ubiquity of food and beverage marketing only complicates the matter. Advertisers are increasingly finding new ways to sidestep parents and market high-calorie, nutritionally bankrupt products directly to youth — especially young people of color, who are already at higher risk for diabetes and other diet-related diseases. With marketers now using Big Data and digital techniques to reach children and teens through websites, social platforms and mobile devices, even most vigilant parents are fighting impossible odds to keep their kids healthy.

the path to success

Healthy populations live in communities that offer easy access to nutritious, affordable food and safe places to exercise and play. Supporting healthy public policies can help us get there. Examples include stricter regulations to reduce junk food marketing to kids; smart growth zoning laws, which locate homes closer to schools and public transportation, thus making it easier for people to walk more and drive less; and shared use agreements, which allow schools and communities to share resources like gyms and athletic fields, giving people more places to be active.

BMSG’s connection

At BMSG, we help advocates communicate to policymakers and the public that people’s environments affect their health. For example, we helped advocates at the California WIC Association fine-tune their messages about the community-wide health benefits of breastfeeding. We have conducted several content analyses to see how arguments for and against soda taxes appear in the news, so that advocates are better equipped to make the case for this health-promoting strategy. And for more than a decade, BMSG provided training and technical assistance to the community-based advocates of The California Endowment’s Healthy Eating Active Communities. Through our trainings and the development of a toolkit and other resources, we helped HEAC groups plan how to mobilize the community on the issue of junk food marketing and how to use media advocacy to advance specific policy goals.

Today, our work on this critical issue continues: With our partners at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, we co-convene the Food Marketing Workgroup, a coalition of more than 225 experts and organizations committed to ending junk food marketing to kids. We also lead the group’s target marketing subcommittee, which is focused on protecting children of color and low-income kids from marketing for unhealthy food.