Documents obtained by the Guardian show that the industry is exploiting sophisticated techniques to market to children without their parents' knowledge.
A detailed submission by advertising agency Leo Burnett to the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising for one of its "effectiveness awards" in 2002 explains how its campaign for Kellogg's Real Fruit Winders "entered the world of kids in a way never done before", and managed to "not let mum in on the act". Sugars make up over a third of the product, which won a "Tooth Rot" award in 2002.
The Commons health select committee report on obesity today warns that the costs of the crisis could be £7.4bn a year, making it impossible for the NHS to cope. A generation is growing up in an environment which encourages obesity, with today's children likely to be the first for over a century for whom life expectancy falls.
In its starkest illustration of the epidemic, the committee cited the death of a three-year-old child from heart failure directly attributed to obesity.
The report condemns the government's timidity and attacks seven departments for failing to offer policies to tackle the crisis caused by sedentary lifestyles and bad diets. MPs were particularly scathing about the secretary of state for culture, media and sport, Tessa Jowell, saying she was "naive" about the impact of marketing junk foods to children.
The lengths to which products are specifically marketed at children are revealed by the campaign for Kellogg's Real Fruit Winders. Using "mutant fruit characters" the agency says it "spread the word about the brand virally" - by word of mouth - following an "initial underground communication" campaign.
It managed to "seed" the characters and a secret language at concerts, in magazines and cinemas. It also used clothing to place the charac ters with children's celebrities, gaining exposure on TV shows and music channels popular with children.
"We have a clear indication that it infiltrated kids' conversations," the ad agency's submission boasts. It quotes typical responses from children in its research: "It's cool" and "It is more secret than text messaging - my mum wouldn't know what was going on."
The Kellogg's Fruit Winder campaign also encouraged children to interact with it on websites or while retrieving emails. New microsites were created on websites popular with children.
The advertising agency says it managed to reach nearly 60% of children with only PR and web activity. It was only after this that it started TV advertising to reach mothers who are seen as the main purchasers. "Kids were our main advocates, but mums became willing accomplices once they knew about the fruit content and the Kellogg's branding."
Kellogg's Real Fruit Winders were awarded the "Tooth Rot" award by the Parents Jury in 2002, an independent panel of 800 parents set up by the Food Commission to look at foods marketed to children.
"Kellogg's Real Fruit Winders do contain real fruit, but it has been processed and supplemented with sugar, hydrogenated fat and other ingredients with little nutritional value," the jury said.
Kellogg's said that it was keen to see a self-regulatory code work and now had a new approach to advertising to include mothers. "Clearly that was some time ago. Since then the debate has moved on. Fruit Winders are a unique product and are all natural ingredients, with no artificial flavourings. As a responsible company, Kellogg's will adapt," director of corporate communication Chris Wermann said.
In its report, the health select committee also attacks the public health minister Melanie Johnson for compla cency and condemns both sports and education ministers for endorsing initiatives to give schools sports equipment or books which required children to buy Cadbury's chocolate or Walkers crisps.
The MPs also say they were "appalled" by the Walkers' campaign for Wotsits that "deliberately sought to undermine parental control over children's nutrition". Walkers Crisps advertising agency Abbott Mead Vickers boasts in its submission for an effectiveness award that its association with Gary Lineker has been worth sales of an extra 114m packets of crisps over two years.
The select committee makes more than 70 recommendations for reforms to school food, labelling, transport and agricultural policies but stopped short of recommending regulation of TV advertising, calling instead for voluntary controls.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1225668,00.html
