- Green Street Radio
Food for kids is a $130 billion dollar business. No wonder our kids are being targeted by food marketers!
This week on Green Street, Patti and Doug talk about the role of nitrous oxide in climate change (it’s a greenhouse gas that’s 300 times more powerful than CO2 ), and how the world is beginning to realize that plastic is a toxic substance, just in time for the UN worldwide plastic treaty talks in South Korea. Then Dr. Charlene Elliot from the University of Calgary talks about the many ways in which food is marketed to children in every stage of their lives, and how equipping them with tools to understand how they are being targeted may be more effective than government regulation.
Charlene Elliott is the Canada Research Chair in Food Marketing and Children’s Health at the University of Calgary. She is Professor of Communication, jointly appointed with the Faculty of Kinesiology. Charlene’s program of research focuses on food marketing, promotion and policy (with a particular emphasis on foods targeted at children), sensory communication and regulation, and taste/taste cultures. She has published extensively in these areas and is also the editor of several books, including How Canadians Communicate about Food: Promotion, Consumption and Controversy (2016) and Communication in Question: Communication in Question: Competing Perspectives on Controversial Issues in Communication Studies, 2nd Edition (2013).
Links from the Interview
Charlene Elliot's page at the University of Calgary: https://grad.ucalgary.ca/future-students/supervisor/charlene-elliott
Charlene Elliot's study on food marketing to kids: https://www.ucalgary.ca/news/majority-supermarket-foods-targeted-canadian-kids-arent-healthy-ucalgary-research-finds
Links from the News
Nitrous Oxide is a Bigger Threat to our Climate Than CO2: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14112024/fertilizers-must-be-deployed-more-efficiently-to-slow-global-warming/
The Plastics Crisis Has Become a Human Healthj Crisis: https://news.mongabay.com/2024/11/the-plastics-crisis-is-now-a-global-human-health-crisis-experts-say/
