Last week Professor Emma Boyland delivered her inaugural lecture: “The Assassin of Joy? Tackling Food Marketing to Improve Public Health” at the University’s Yoko Ono Lennon Centre.
Emma is Professor of Food Marketing and Child Health and leads the Appetite and Obesity Research Group at the Department of Psychology.
In the lecture Emma outlined her research journey exploring the challenges she has faced in proving the links between aggressive marketing of unhealthy foods to children, skyrocketing childhood obesity and chronic disease.
Emma spoke about how her work has shaped public health policy in the UK and globally and the work still to be done to protect children in the digital age of gaming, social media and online apps.
Childhood obesity has reached epidemic levels globally. Overweight children are more likely to remain obese into adulthood and develop non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease at a younger age. Emma described new research methodologies that were needed to prove the links between rising childhood obesity and sophisticated marketing tailored to increase children’s consumption of foods high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) by global food players such as McDonalds, Coca-Cola and KFC.
Her group’s research has influenced public health policy worldwide. Emma outlined her contributions to the WHO Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity to create protocols and templates to monitor the harmful effects of food marketing. In 2015 and 2018 Emma advised the Commons Health Select Committee on the urgent need for restrictions on the activities of food marketers as well as limiting children’s exposure to HFSS food advertising.
In her concluding remarks, Emma emphasised the ongoing need to understand new risks of food marketing to children in today’s immersive digital environments such as via ‘advergaming’, sponsored social influencers and food delivery apps.
Listen to the full recording here.