Celebrities Criticised for Endorsing Less Healthy Food

A survey of celebrity endorsed foods shows more than 25 well known folk who are more than happy to have had their ‘brand’ linked to foods and drinks of the type that the medical journal, The Lancet, has said they should be ashamed to promote.

23/03/09 Campaigners at The UK Food Commission have criticised celebrities for promoting high fat, saturated fat, sugar or salt food products.

A survey of celebrity endorsed foods shows more than 25 well known folk who are more than happy to have had their ‘brand’ linked to foods and drinks of the type that the medical journal, The Lancet, has said they should be ashamed to promote. Triple gold medal winning cyclist Chris Hoy’s endorsement of high sugar Kellogg’s Bran Flakes is just the latest entry into a packed gallery of actors, sports people, musicians, and chefs happy to sell their faces to add lustre to the image of foods of poor nutritional quality.

Products high in sugar or fat – or both - are particularly prevalent in the survey, but high salt products also have celebrity backers. The majority of promotions in the survey are current – but even those that are not currently being run by companies are still being viewed on websites such as YouTube. 

Sports stars such as Ian Wright, Chris Hoy, Kelly Holmes and David Beckham have all been the face of high sugar products. It is hard to believe that double Olympic Gold Medal winner Kelly Holmes ever woke up to Coco Pops Coco Rocks cereal, but she has had her face on the box as part of Kellogg’s Wake up to Breakfast campaign. Perhaps David Beckham wore off the 55grams of sugar calories in the half litre Pepsi he promoted during his extensive training sessions – but it won’t prove so easy for your average office worker or schoolchild. 

The Government runs public campaigns to encourage reductions in the consumption of salt and saturated fat – and its own dietary surveys show that many people eat far too much sugar. Every product in the survey would be banned, under Ofcom guidance, from advertising during certain television programmes of particular interest to child audiences due to their poor nutritional quality.  Yet, it is clear that minimal protection is afforded, not just to children, but to all of us – with celeb-promoted products in our survey appearing in radio ads, splashed on billboards, on company websites, on YouTube, and on TV shows with large child audiences but that fall outside the narrow remit of Ofcom rules. 

The problem of celebrity promotion seems to be getting worse, according to Deputy Chief Executive of the National Heart Forum, Jane Landon, “Following the introduction of the Ofcom rules on food and drink advertising to children on TV, the number of food ads featuring celebrities has fallen during children’s programming. But the number of celebrity food ads at other times of day has apparently increased which means that children’s overall exposure is still high. Celebrity ads usually combine familiarity, aspiration and humour – all highly appealing to children, and advertisers know this is an extremely successful recipe for selling everything from butter to crisps.”

However, not all celebs are willing to sell out to such marketing – and The Food Commission will be running a campaign to get ‘refusers’ to sign up to a charter.  Oscar-winning actor, Emma Thompson, has The Food Commission, “I do think a contract or petition would be a good thing and I'd certainly sign up to it. There's so much RUBBISH out there and it appalls me that we are used to sell it.

She has told the Food Commission: “I remember being given a choice about the products that Nanny McPhee could be connected with.  I, of course, nixed all the Nestlé and high sugar/salt content stuff.” Director of The Food Commission, Jessica Mitchell, says, “I wish more celebrities would follow Emma Thompson’s example. It doesn’t seem too much to ask that they use their influence more positively rather than just to line their own pockets. Maybe we would all be eating our five a day, rather than barely three, if the humble apple or cabbage had the advertising budget devoted to sugar and saturated fat.”