Speaking at a California State Senate informational hearing, BMSG media researcher Andrew Cheyne talks about the government’s role in protecting public health. He discusses how public perceptions of the government’s responsibility to support health have changed over time and explains how media coverage can influence — and often limit — our understanding of health issues.
Marketing for soda and junk food is everywhere kids are: at school, in the supermarket, in our communities and online. Try as they might, parents simply can’t compete with the $1.8 billion food companies spend each year to entice and engage children. In this commentary (part of a larger report on obesity), BMSG’s Lori Dorfman and CSPI‘s Margo Wootan discuss the issue and what can be done. To view the commentary, see Page 73 of the full report.
In 2012, two California cities asked voters to consider taxing soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages. The measures failed, but advocates can learn a lot from how the news media covered the issue. In this preliminary report, we discuss what arguments appeared in the news, how reporters portrayed the need for the policies, how government and the soda industry were characterized, and what this means going forward. A final report will be released later this year.
In this presentation, as part of the Institute of Medicine workshop Creating Equal Opportunities for a Healthy Weight, BMSG’s Lori Dorfman discusses how our message environment undermines health equity by targeting youth (especially youth of color) with marketing for unhealthy foods. Dorfman says this type of targeting often happens without parents’ knowledge and makes recommendations for change, including conducting more research and pushing for policies that strengthen nutrition standards and hold industry accountable.
In spite of a rapid growth in digital marketing, research on how it affects children’s health has failed to keep pace with changing industry practices. This chapter, part of Advances in Communication Research to Reduce Childhood Obesity, presents a conceptual framework for understanding how digital marketing differs from traditional forms of marketing and identifies challenges for researchers.
In the heat of a campaign, it can be easy to forget that advocacy is about more than winning a particular policy change. It’s about values and relationships — and that requires dialogue. In this discussion, Francisco (Pancho) Argüelles, executive director of the Living Hope Wheelchair Association, encourages us to step outside our comfort zones and learn how to open the space for conversation so that we can become better allies to communities struggling for justice.
Advocates work tirelessly for social change on a variety of issues. But their efforts may be thwarted by underlying negative attitudes toward government and a widespread misunderstanding of its role in creating a healthy, functioning society. As part of BMSG’s 20th anniversary series, Patrick Bresette, former program director for Public Works, explores how we can tackle this problem and build public support for a government dedicated to the common good.
Food companies use viral digital marketing tactics, which may be considered deceptive and in violation of state consumer protection laws, to induce children to share email addresses of their friends and spread brand advertising of unhealthy foods among their peers. This legal issue brief, prepared by the Public Health Advocacy Institute in collaboration with BMSG and the Center for Digital Democracy, explains the tactics being used and suggests ways they can be addressed, particularly under state law.
Cereal companies, the third biggest food marketer to children, are using sophisticated online marketing techniques to target kids with unhealthy products and get them to engage with brands in ways not possible through television advertising. In this study, BMSG’s Andrew Cheyne, Lori Dorfman and Eliana Bukofzer, along with the UConn Rudd Center‘s Jennifer Harris, explore cereal companies’ digital marketing tactics and implications for public health.
Although research suggests that healthy products can be profitable for the food industry, marketers continue to target children with ads for foods and beverages that are unhealthy, cheap and widely available. Such marketing is linked to overweight, obesity and related health problems. This brief report, prepared by Healthy Eating Research based on BMSG research, explains the scope of the problem and offers recommendations for improvement.
