Right: McDonald's best-selling "Happy Meal". Critics point to the packaging and advertising of McDonald's "children's" food as promoting an unrealistic image of the products' nutritional value.
Background information
Tackling obesity in AustraliaA House of Representatives report, 'Weighing It Up: Obesity in Australia', made twenty recommendations designed to help reduce the problem of obesity in Australia. Three of these are printed below.
* The Committee recommended that the Minister for Health and Ageing commission research into the effect of the advertising of food products with limited nutritional value on the eating behaviour of children and other vulnerable groups.
* The Committee recommended that the Federal Government ... create a set of standard guidelines to ensure that food labels provide consistent nutritional information...
* Regarding the content and the promotion of fast food the Committee recommended that the Minister for Health and Ageing adopt a phased approach regarding regulations on the reformulation of food products and the control of fast food advertising. Industry should be encouraged to make changes through self-regulation but if industry fails to make concrete changes within a reasonable time-frame the Federal Government should consider regulations.
Regulation of fast food advertising in other countries
The following overview is drawn substantially from Wikipedia's entry on 'Fast food advertising'. The full text of this entry can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_food_advertising
One of the main areas of regulation facing fast food companies is the advertising of 'junk food' to children.
In the United Kingdom, the Children's Food Bill is intended to highly regulate the advertising of such food aimed at children. Talks between the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the fast food companies were begun to improve children's diets, though Burger King withdrew from the discussions.
In June 2006, the FSA called for laws to prevent such food from being advertised on television before 9pm. They also called for the disassociation of television and film characters from fast food and stopping celebrities from appearing in such advertisements.
In November 2006, the British Office of Communications (Ofcom) announced that it would ban television advertisements for junk food before, during and after television programing aimed at under-16s in the United Kingdom.
This move has been criticised on both ends of the scale; while the Food and Drink Federation labelled the ban 'over the top', others have said the restrictions do not go far enough (particularly due to the fact that soap operas would be exempt from the ban).
On 1 April 2007, junk food advertisements were banned from programs aimed at four to nine-year-olds. Such advertisements broadcast during programmes 'aimed at, or which would appeal to,' ten to fifteen-year-olds will continue to be phased out over the coming months, with a full ban coming into effect on 1 January 2009.
In Sweden all advertising aimed at the under-12s is banned, including fast food advertisements.
On 3 June 2004 KFC withdrew American television commercials after reaching a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.
Faced with stricter television, radio and print regulation, many fast food companies have started making use of Internet advertising to reach their customers.
The accuracy of the images of food used by the fast food companies is regularly called into question. The actual product is often described as being of poorer quality to that represented in the image.