Day 031 - 05 Oct 94 - Page 41


     
     1        cent; soft drinks 6.7 per cent; meat products, that is
     2        sausages and the like, 6.3 per cent and puddings and ice
     3        cream, in this case, 2.1 per cent.
     4
     5        When you add that proportion up and leaving the meat out,
     6        because one is not saying that meat is necessarily in the
     7        category that I am about to describe, when you add that
     8        up, you come to approximately 50 per cent of the energy is
     9        coming from sorts of foods which are, if you like, very
    10        much in the popular domain of children's advertising time,
    11        the chips, the confectionery, the ice creams and the
    12        things of that sort.
    13
    14        I think that is disturbing because it suggests that the
    15        children are responding to pressures that are coming
    16        through to them via the media.  One would be surprised if
    17        the media was not actually spending its money on the sort
    18        of advertisements of television time exposed to children
    19        without expecting some kind of rewards from it.  But it
    20        does look as though the effects of this kind of thing, if
    21        I am right in that assumption that there is a link between
    22        the media exposure of these children to this type of food,
    23        that a disproportionate amount of their energy is coming
    24        from that sector of those food groups which are probably
    25        about the least nourishing.
    26
    27   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You really feel able to draw that
    28        conclusion, do you?
    29        A.  Well, I -----
    30
    31   Q.   I mean, I have to say that we did not have a television in
    32        my household until I was about 13 or 14 years of age.  I
    33        cannot remember when advertising was allowed on
    34        television; it was not until some years after that.  But
    35        everyone loved chips and sweets and preferred white bread
    36        to brown when they were young.
    37        A.  Yes, I will accept that there is -- one would like to
    38        know a great deal more about this data, your Lordship.  We
    39        are talking here about the low socioeconomic children of
    40        Hackney.  Despite the lower socioeconomic activity of
    41        these households, they quite often have the SKY television
    42        discs as well as their conventional television sets.
    43        There is no doubt that these children are being exposed to
    44        a considerable amount of pressure to eat this collection
    45        of foods.  But I would not like to be able to put a hard
    46        figure on what proportion of that food choice or selection
    47        is associated or directly simulated by television
    48        exposure, but I believe the London Food Commission is
    49        currently conducting a survey on this.
    50 
    51        It is my impression from talking to them that they think 
    52        there is a real connection between food choice in children 
    53        and also in Borthwick's, a company has recently circulated
    54        a publication in which it has described the success of
    55        what it calls "pester power".  "Pester power" is the power
    56        of children to persuade their parents to buy X, Y and Z,
    57        and Borthwick's actual circular which is sending around
    58        the industry (which I have seen) is actually describing
    59        the virtues of pester power, of directing television
    60        images at children to persuade their parents to buy this,

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