Biting Back at Junk Food Ads

Junk food has us surrounded. From the moment we’re born, every second of every day, we’re targeted with clever marketing tactics. Food companies promote high fat, sugar and salt foods on products aimed at kids, hiding their sinister impact behind cute and cuddly marketing. They sponsor your favourite sports team dressing the players up as walking crisps packets and get a kick out of fooling us with misleading nutritional claims.

At Bite Back, we think the bombardment of junk food ads across our screens needs to stop. Will you join us today by asking your local sports team to ditch the junk?

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Hi,I am a massive fan of yours, and I also support the work of Bite Back 2030 — a youth activist movement set up to challenge the big food companies who are fuelling food-related ill health. They are fighting to make it easier for young people to be healthy and I think it would be great if you got involved with their latest campaign.Will you meet with Bite Back’s Youth Activists to discuss your role in protecting us from food-related ill health?Bite Back highlights the important part that sport plays in young people’s lives and how it unites us, inspires us and creates positive memories. But big food companies have an ulterior motive. For them, sport is about making junk food play a starring role in young people’s minds.So many teams and competitions have sponsorship deals with junk food brands. Coca Cola and the Olympics, McDonald’s and grassroots football, the Papa John's Trophy, KP Snacks and The Hundred cricket tournament — just to name a few! it’s so ingrained in sport that we don’t even question it.This is no small matter. Right now, nearly 1 in 3 young people risk a future of food-related ill health. But the good news is: it’s totally preventable.This is where clubs like you come in. Bite Back have developed the #PacketIn Pledge and are calling on all clubs to sign it. By signing the Pledge, you would be committing to not sign sponsorship agreements with brands that promote unhealthy diets to young people.<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Cv-PRYsMl0m/">Do you remember when Ronaldo removed the coke bottle at the press conference and said ‘agua’ instead?</a> It was a huge moment and encapsulated how the Bite Back Youth Activists feel - junk food has no place in sport. Their goal with the Pledge is to demonstrate that this is an issue sports clubs care about, and build momentum towards action at the national Government level.It would be really valuable for someone from the club to meet with Bite Back’s young campaigners and hear more about their campaign and the Pledge. There are so many fans across the country who want to see junk food adverts kicked out of sport, and Bite Back’s Pledge is a great first step to make this happen.If you are interested, please let me know and also email Sam Keyte from Bite Back on: sam.keyte@biteback2030.com.Thanks,

I'd like to receive email updates from Bite Back 2030 on my impact, and on other ways to help all young people access healthy, nutritious food.

In addition to our national campaigns we have also been working hard in our local areas to drive change. That includes commissioning research to lay bare just how cynically food and drink companies target us through sports marketing. Through the eyes of young sports fans, we focused on football — the nation’s most popular sport.

We’ve also called out one of the worst examples of junk food sponsorship in sports we’ve ever seen — KP Snacks’ sponsorship of The Hundred cricket tournament. If it’s not ridiculous enough that players run around the pitch dressed as giant crisp packets, nearly three-quarters of the flagship KP products featured are so unhealthy that they can’t be advertised to children on TV or online*. Yet here they are, plastered over the players’ kits in a cricket tournament aimed at families.

*By 'flagship products' we mean all products from each brand that were available to purchase on the Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda websites on 30th June 2023, and individual packs only, not variety bags. Nutrition information was taken from the Tesco website only.

Biting Back at Junk Food Ads

Take The #PacketIn Pledge To Make A Difference Today

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