Johane Filemon (photo, left), a black nutritionist and mother, insists families of color “are being systematically targeted with ads for unhealthy foods.”
She complains junk food ads are everywhere, “on TV, YouTube, social media platforms, game-streaming apps and even mobile educational games.”
The Guardian says, “Her concerns are supported by a slew of research. … US food companies disproportionately market unhealthy food and drink – including candy, sodas, snacks and fast food – to Black and Hispanic children, teens and adults.” (Read story here.)
As an example of how they do it, “Many fast-food brands employ celebrities from Black and Hispanic communities.” Children’s obesity rates tell a story: In the U.S., 16.6% of white kids, 24.8% of black kids, and 26.2% of Hispanic kids are obese, the Guardian says.
You could argue that deluging minority communities with junk food advertising isn’t overtly racist; the companies are just trying to make money. (But that was true of slaveowners, too; how someone makes money matters.)
And other barriers also stand between minorities and healthy food: Fewer shopping choices in low-income neighborhoods, and financial inability to feed their families healthy foods.
But even if food companies aren’t being deliberately racist, they’re not good guys when “powerful food industry lobbying [works] to prevent the FTC from enacting even voluntary guidelines.”
Some media companies are trying to do better with their own guidelines. For example, “Disney restricts food advertisements across its television channels, radio station and website to food products that meet its nutrition criteria,” and Google doesn’t allow food ads on its YouTube Kids channel.
But relying on business to self-regulate is always spotty at best. The profit motive is simply too strong. Executives don’t get bonuses for saving kids. Streets don’t work without traffic rules and cops to enforce them; capitalism needs enforceable rules to work, too.
Go ahead, say it’s a free speech issue, then I’ll ask if you’re okay with food processors falsifying ingredients or package weights. The government has long required truth in advertising, and weights-and-measures laws have existed since Colonial times, long before there was a United States. All freedoms have limits because our cultural and legal traditions have never recognized a “right” to harm others, least of all kids.
