About
This hub is a resource for all things countermarketing as it relates to unhealthy food. Here you will find educational tools, teaching materials, countermarketing examples, and be able to connect with other groups that are doing countermarketing work.
Food countermarketing seeks to decrease the consumption of unhealthy food and beverages by exposing the motives and undermining the practices of unhealthy food marketers. Food countermarketing activities challenge the marketing of unhealthy products.
The Truth campaign, one of the most widely recognized anti-tobacco countermarketing campaigns, was successful in reducing tobacco usage among youth. The same strategies used in tobacco countermarketing can be impactful in countermarketing unhealthy foods that contribute to high rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, and affect the eating habits of young people.
You may wonder why this hub is youth focused. Youth are the main targets of junk food marketing. While food marketers say they want healthy children, they also spend almost $2 billion annually on advertising to them. Moreover, African-American and Latino youth are often identified as specific targets for the marketing of unhealthy food, contributing to their higher rates of diet-related diseases. By raising awareness among young people about what food companies are doing, we can empower them to make conscious and informed decisions about what they choose to eat.
Traditional health education often tells you what not to do, however food countermarketing takes a different approach. Food countermarketing brings awareness to the subtle and deceptive strategies food producers use to market unhealthy products, especially to youth, low-income communities, Latinos, and African-Americans.
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Please email UrbanFoodPolicy@sph.cuny.edu if you would like your countermarketing work to be featured on this website.
This website was developed with support of the Levitt Foundation.
Image from www.propandga.com by artist Ron English.
Countermarketing example by CUNY Food Justice Leadership Fellows, Christal Yu and Ang Lama