AIBU to question this advertisement?

[Tabby1963]

Kelloggs is promoting their high sugar cereals to parents with the 'sweetener' that they will be 'giving a child a breakfast' if they buy the stuff really clever advertising "we'll sell you this unhealthy shit full of all sorts of crap and vitamins and you'll be doing a good deed too so that's alright then".

Apparently NetMums is officially supporting it too and suppressing negative comments from members on their forum.

Wouldn't it be better to just make a donation and give our children a healthier breakfast alternative?

It is no wonder we are getting fatter. Our kids have got no chance with increasingly sophisticated adverts like this (sad and frustrated emoticon).

[Hamwidgeandcheps]

Yanbu in any way

[FredFredGeorge]

YABU, there's nothing unhealthy about a breakfast cereal (there is of course about overall diets, but the cereal can be part of one)

Breakfast cereal adverts do not make you fat, if you disagree with the advertising don't buy their food.

[steppemum]

Fred - I haven't seen the ad, but if this is a high sugar cereal, so I really wouldn't say there is 'nothing unhealthy' about it?

[RoonilWazlibWuvsHermyown]

YABU. The adverts are aimed at people who do eat cereal to try and get those cereal eaters to buy their cereal. Not to convert all the people who have a "healthier breakfast".

[steppemum]

we eat cereal, but not the sugar coated/ high sugar ones. There is a difference I think

[FredFredGeorge]

steppemum There's nothing unhealthy about even a high sugar cereal, it may not be the best choice in the wider context of an individual diet - although that of course would depend on when it was being eaten and what the rest of the diet was etc.

So it's not an ideal food, but demonising entire food groups or nutrients ("sugar is evil!") is much more likely to have a negative impact on peoples diets than an advert for a breakfast club promotion that shows the pictures of a few of Kellogg's cereals - they're not even mentioned by name in the advert.

[wigglesrock]

The ad is on my Cornflakes box. Kelloggs donate a breakfast to a local breakfast club for every promotional pack sold. That's pretty standard advertising procedure - I can think of different ads along those lines.

It's advertising, they're not doing something for nothing - can't be that big of a surprise.

I've no issue with my kids having a bowl of cornflakes in the morning or before bed.

[TheFallenNinja]

This has nothing to do with "high sugar breakfast" it's the OP grandstanding agains a corporation and imagining some plot where Kellogs and Netmums are out to damage our kids.

It's boring and it's nonsense.

[MrsLouisTheroux]

OTT OP. NetMums are scheming with Kelloggs in a quest to make our children fat as much as Mumsnet are scheming with Cadburys (by promoting their tempting little chocolate pebbles) in a quest to make me fat.

[Tabby1963]

I am looking at the bigger picture of how the food industry is marketing its high sugar and carefully created to be addictive cereals to people, particularly parents with children food companies future market in particular.

If you really believe that they are in any tiny way at all committed to your children's health by adding 'vitamins' to a sugar-laden food, you are naïve.

Their bottom line is PROFIT, any way they can legally get away with it.

By focusing consumers on "helping a good cause" they hope to increase their profits and make their shareholders happy. There really is no more to it than that.

The fact is that these sugar-laden foods are bad for our health even though they are marketed as having vitamins and minerals added, and particularly our children's health. There is more and more evidence to support claims that the obesity epidemic has been fuelled (literally) by the massive marketing and consuming of high sugar and salt and fat foods, but don't take my word for it, do some research yourself.

The food industry spends millions on scientific research looking for the perfect combination of addictive substances to create the next big profit-making "food" to sell to consumers mugs. For example Pringles once you pop you can't stop,a marvellously irresistable combination of sugar, salt and fat and other chemicals moulded into an attractive shape and boxed in a tube. Take a look at the ingredients and the process of making this stuff...

[monicalewinski]

Yawn.

Myself and my family (OMG - my children included), eat breakfast cereal AS PART OF OUR OVERALL DIET. I am not killing my children, they are not "addicted" to breakfast cereal and they do eat a varied diet.

Totally not interested in your crusade and am actually quite happy that the cereal which I will buy anyway will have an offshoot good deed.

And by the way, I am not a "mug" because I have a different view to you.

[havingamadmoment]

We dont eat cereal but I think you are majorly over reacting - its a food like any other. Out of interest what do you feed you children for breakfast OP?

[jacks365]

Hate to break it to you but a company is obliged to maximise profits on behalf of its stockholders. Kelloggs do the breakfast club, nestle do books for schools (no product loyalty in this house). Lets face it doing this isn't going to make someone who normally makes a cooked breakfast suddenly stop and buy cereals instead but it might make someone pick Kelloggs over another brand and like someone else pointed out it is the full range not just the extra sweet ones. I buy breakfast cereals because a small bowl keeps the little one happy while I cook her breakfast.

[Tabby1963]

Monica, you are no more a mug than me, I am using that term in relation to how we consumers are viewed by the food industry.

I am probably badly trying to explain that consumers are seen as a group to be exploited by food companies who are trying to increase their market share by using sophisticated marketing campaigns and creating new addictive foods to sell to us.

I worry about our children's and their children's future health if we don't wake up to what is going on, and how we are being manipulated and suckered in.

Having, my kids are grown up and moved on now but back in the day we had a variety of cereals to choose from, including; porridge, cornflakes, crunchy-nut cornflakes, and muesli. The crunchy-nut cornflakes lasted five minutes on average so they were a very occasional 'treat' sigh.

If I had young children today and knowing what I now know about the impact of high sugar/fat/salt foods on health I would limit their access to sugary cereals/breakfasts foods.

I am not judging anyone who eats cereal, I am just putting forward a view that I feel that I and others have been/are being manipulated by food companies for profit, at the expense of my and my family's health and the population generally.

I didn't understand this for years, but now am becoming aware and am feeling pretty angry with food companies who are getting away with manipulating me/us at the expense of our health. They have so much power that sadly, little will change, except that instances of type 2 diabetes will continue to increase, and at a younger age, obesity will continue to increase even though we spend millions on the diet industry.

[steppemum]

CORNFLAKES???

I thought we were talking about a high sugar cereal.

mine all eat cornflakes/weetabix/shreddies type cereal, I have no problem perfectly fine for breakfast.

I think I am a cany enough consumer to realise that they don't donate to free breakfasts out of the goodness of their heart. I don't choose whta we eat based on who is donating to who, but on what we like and will eat and we eat asdas version of them all anyway

[78bunion]

All parents know that all cereals for breakfast are carb junk and plenty of them are crammed with sugar. Give children things like eggs.

The netmums cocopops debacle shows how insidious the advertisers are.
Watch the Big Sugar films on youtube and Addicted to Pleasure - Sugar.

By all means fill your child with junk and sugar but do not assume this is healthy. It is why over 50% of people are now fat - sugar sugar and carb. Yuck.
Look at the ingredients. Only real porridge oats has nothing junk added but even that is carb. You are better off with nutritious proteins and veg.

[WorraLiberty]

Please stop crossing things out OP, it makes what you're saying very difficult to read.

[MrsLouisTheroux]

Tabby The concerns you have written about ^^ cover the entire food market not just cereals. The whole industry is for profit and advertisers are paid ££ to convince us that we need/ want/should eat their stuff. The 'healthy' tag is widely used. No getting away from it unless you grow your own stuff and cook from scratch.

[Purple2012]

Well said worra

[Tabby1963]

Thanks for your advice Worra, I'll stop crossing things out when every other poster does, haha :D

Have a nice day!

Louis, yes that's true, it is very, very depressing.

Steppemum, the original advert that I saw featured the extra sweet cereals, not the plain ones. My concern is that the food industry is attempting to 'normalise' these very sweet ones at the expense of the cornflakes or Weetabix. Children would usually prefer the sweet ones, parents may be pressured to buy them because they know their children would eat them and they would be reassured by the big claims about containing vitamins on the packet.

I repeat, the food industry spend millions on research about what combination of ingredients proves irresistible to consumers (including children). They don't care how harmful for health they are in the long term, parents and consumers have to be aware of what's going on so they can make informed choices.

Bunion The TV programmes, 'the men who made us fat', and 'the men who made us thin' were on recently and are quite shocking. I had no idea about just now powerful and damaging the food industry was. It is no wonder that obesity was rampant nowadays, these programmes explain exactly why :( Furthermore, the food industry is so powerful that they lobby governments hard to protect their market.

[78bunion]

Also bear in mind plenty of parents would not give children cornflakes or weetabix either - read their ingredients list - they are hardly natural products. They are full of stuff and include sugar on the ingredients.

[78bunion]

Yes, Tabby I saw a bit of those. The reality is most people are addicted to sugar or else find cereals quicker at breakfast time than boiling or frying eggs so I doubt a return to the traditional healthier British protein based breakfast is at all likely for most parents.

[geekgal]

I actually don't understand why you keep crossing things out, only about a quarter of it is sarcasm, the rest just seem like run on sentences...

On topic I have to say that in a capitalist society it will always be the case that advertisers will do anything they are allowed to sell a product, thats why government place restrictions on truthfulness in advertising. Without rules they would probably tell you their products will cure scurvy and make you taller too! I'm not a big fan of capitalism as it stands, and I get a vague notion that food should be considered a right rather than a product, after all, you can't live without it, can you? But how that would ever work in practice is anybody's guess, we have what we've got now, and that comes with adverts!

I like cereal, by the way, it tastes nice

[MrsLouisTheroux]

You need to use (these) instead of doing this

[OwlinaTree]

I like breakfast cereal.