Fast food companies spend billions disproportionately targeting minority youth, study finds

Junk food companies spent billions of advertising dollars in 2017 targeting black and Hispanic kids, a new study has revealed.

Television ads for fast food, sugary drinks and fatty or salty snacks are almost exclusively targeted to minority youth, the report, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, found.

In fact, junk food made up a whopping 86 percent of ad spending for black-targeted television and 82 percent for Spanish-language television.

Further, despite the fact that food companies overall TV ad spend declined between 2013 and 2017, junk food ads targeting black viewers rose 50 percent. This means black teens saw twice as many ads for junk food products compared to white teens in 2017.

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“Food companies have introduced healthier products and established corporate responsibility programs to support health and wellness among their customers,” the report’s lead author Jennifer Harris of University of Connecticut’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity said in a statement.

“But this study shows that they continue to spend 8 of 10 TV advertising dollars on fast food, candy, sugary drinks, and unhealthy snacks, with even more advertising for these products targeted to Black and Hispanic youth.”

Researchers reviewed the targeted ad efforts of 32 restaurants and food and beverage companies that spent $100 million or more to reach kids and teens in 2017. These companies spent nearly $11 billion on TV ads in 2017, with $1.1 billion spent on black and Spanish-speaking programming.

The research was released by the Rudd Center – a research and policy group dedicated to combatting childhood obesity – as well as the Council on Black Health at Drexel University and Salud America! at the University of Texas Health Science Center.

“It’s perpetuating the disparities that we all already see in kids’ health. Kids are very vulnerable to advertising, much more so than adults,” Harris told The Huffington Post.

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“It’s making the public health community’s job so much more difficult. It’s making parents’ jobs so much more difficult.”

The report also found that TV ads for healthier products such as water, juice, and nuts, only totaled $195 million in 2017 – just three percent of all ad spend. And these products represented only one percent of ad spend on black television.

“Not only are these companies missing out on a marketing opportunity, but they are inadvertently contributing to poor health in black communities by heavily promoting products linked to an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure,” Shiriki Kumanyika, one of the study’s authors and chair of the Council on Black Health, said.

Fast food restaurants represented approximately one-half of all food-related TV advertising in 2017, while PepsiCo, Coca-cola and Mars were the companies with the most brands targeted to all youth.

But it was candy brands in particular which disproportionately targeted minority kids — making up 20 percent of all junk food ads viewed by black and Hispanic youth.

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Amelie G. Ramirez, director of Salud America! and another of the report’s authors, said these companies must do better.

“If the industry really values these consumers, companies will take responsibility for advertising that encourages poor diet and related diseases,” she said.

The report calls on food manufacturers to expand their marketing commitments to promoting health and wellness, and stop disproportionately targeting communities of color.