You often read news items accompanied by a photograph of an obese child munching
chips and playing video games. Well as it turns out, that child just might be playing an online advergame offered by a junk food snack company. Examples include
Pop-Tart Slalom and
Chips Ahoy Soccer Shootout. According to
The Associated Press, traffic to food sites with games like these is soaring. The pitch is simple enough; marketers hope children will remember the game brand when they’re hungry. But advergames just fan the flames of the childhood obesity debate. "Overwhelmingly, almost exclusively, the Web sites you are looking at are for foods that are of poor nutritional quality," says Margo G. Wootan, director of nutrition at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group. Research from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that “85 percent of the top food brands that use TV to target kids also use the Web.”
Marketing Blurb reminds readers that parents, not Uncle Sam, are responsible for the games children play.
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