(ANSA) – SYDNEY, 27 JUL – The major international food and drink brands, among the causes of childhood obesity, ‘seduce’ social media users on TikTok to become influencer-type ambassadors for them. The social network has more than 7 million users in Australia and it was expected that they would try to exploit the emerging market of under 18. A new Australian research examined the presence on TikTok of 16 food brands and the results suggest that these are targeting the very young, using tactics ‘insidious’ advertising.
By analyzing more than 500 videos, researchers at Canberra’s Deakin University found that companies try to influence users, often through ‘challenges’, to showcase their products. One example is the global campaign shared billions of times, in which football stars Lionel Messi and Paul Pogba dribble as they fly through cans of Pepsi, encourage followers to create and share similar videos. On its website, the social media noted that it attracted “hundreds of thousands of young people”.
Similar situation in the US, where Tik Tok users were encouraged to learn a dance and then perform it in a Burger King restaurant and share it online, in exchange for a hamburger for a dollar. Study director Kathryn Backholer, of the university’s Institute for Health Transformation, describes the campaigns as “an incredibly insidious strategy, with serious consequences for growing obesity among the very young.” Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics indicate that 67% of adults are already or nearly overweight. If the trend continues, the vast majority of adults may be overweight by 2030. Public health advocates have long been calling for junk food advertising to be banned on TV during children’s viewing hours, a measure promoted by the Greens for at least 15 years, hitherto unsuccessful. The National Obesity Strategy, backed by the federal government, points to the imposition of a crackdown on junk food advertising as a major step towards reducing childhood obesity. (HANDLE).
Source: Ansa
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