Celebrities Shilling for Unhealthy Products, Can It Hurt their Brand?

CBC News has reported yesterday that the food and beverage industry spends $2 billion US a year on ads targeted on teens featuring their favorite performers. A study published in Monday's issue of the journal Pediatrics, researchers looked into the nutritional value of products endorsed by a lot of entertainers from 2000 to 2014 in TV and radio commercials, magazine ads and YouTube videos.

Will.i.am, Baauer, Maroon 5, Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears had the most food and beverage endorsements, including fast food such as McDonald's, Chili's and A&W, as well as crackers from Nabisco, which sponsored a tour by boy band One Direction.

Marie Bragg, A doctor working for department of population health at New York University School of Medicine and her colleagues found out that 81 percent of 26 endorsed foods were unhealthy, according to the Nutrient Profile Index of energy density and nutrient levels.

Bragg suggested teens should not only be aware of the issue, but they should speak up about it, because if they complain about feeling manipulated the companies might change their tactics. Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, who treats people with obesity-related illnesses, thinks media literacy alone won't suffice, given the scale of the health problems associated with obesity.

Would shilling hurt their brand? Right now nobody bats an eye at Beyoncé signing a $50-million deal to sell liquid candy to kids," said Freedhoff, an assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa who was not involved with the study.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's mandate letter for health calls for restrictions on commercial marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children, similar to rules in place in Quebec that ban ads directed at children under the age of 13. A spokeswoman for Health Canada said the age limit hasn't been determined yet.

CBC News played some of the ads to a Grade 8 class in Toronto. The star power made the ads more memorable, some students said, but their enjoyment was tempered with a keen awareness of the "tricks they're trying to pull on us."