A new report just out from the Federal Trade Commission reports big dollars spent on advertising to kids. Food companies spent about 1.6 billion, or yeah, billion dollars marketing mostly high fat and high sugar foods to kids. This includes marketing products like:

• soda
• fast food
• cereal

The biggest dollar spend was the carbonated beverage advertising that topped $492 million dollars.

How does that compare to the Milk dollars? According to this report, milk advertising was $67 million.

It’s hard to compete with the big bucks going to advertising to kids. But there is something we can do. We are passive here as parents and the biggest influencer on our kids lives. But how do we combat all those fun cartoons telling our kids that it’s fun and cool to eat these high sugar cereals or the fast food burger that has more calories than a normal breakfast and lunch (put together)!

We have to find our own ways to make the healthier foods seem more fun. Ever make a happy face with the veggies at dinner? How about using some of the colorful vegetables and fruits to create little characters on their plates. Get them playing the Chef Solus and the Food Pyramid Adventure where they will see characters learning about nutrition in a fun game. We have to use laughter, creativity and games to “market” healthy foods to kids.

I am going to put together a list of fun ideas that you can use during your day to help make nutrition more fun. That is the first step, begin to associate fun with nutrition!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 at 8:22 am and is filed under Advertising to kids, Fast foods. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.