This spring the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute led a Youth Sugar Sweetened Beverage Countermarketing project, working with students from A. Philip Randolph High School to develop countermarketing images against unhealthy, sugar-sweetened beverages. Countermarketing uses health communications strategies to reduce the demand for unhealthy products by exposing the motives of their producers.
Through these images the students take a stand against beverage companies marketing to them and their community, and also educate their communities and peers about the health impacts of sugar sweetened beverages and their aggressive marketing to vulnerable populations and minorities. Through this project students learned about targeted marketing, the health impacts of sugary drink consumption, and how countermarketing can be used as a tool against predatory marketing. Additionally, the students were also trained on how to use Adobe Photoshop and InDesign to create their images by teaching artists from Creative Art Works.
To engage East Harlem community residents, student posters were displayed at Uptown Grand Central (125th Street & Park Avenue in East Harlem) on June 28, 2017 during a Fresh Food Box Distribution. According to the NYC Department of Health, East Harlem adults are more likely to consume sugary drinks than residents of Manhattan as a whole. Obesity and diabetes are associated with frequent consumption of sugary drinks, and East Harlem adults experience rates of obesity and diabetes more than residents of New York City as a whole.
Our hope is that the images will make community residents think twice before they consume sugary beverages, and that this project provides momentum for other countermarketing initiatives that engage youth. Community organizations and groups interested in displaying the images or learning more about the project can contact Charita Johnson at charita.johnson@sph.cuny.edu.
Thanks to the Uptown Grand Central and GrowNYC for sharing space to display the images, and to project partners A. Philip Randolph High School, Creative Art Works, and the Partnership for a Healthier Manhattan.
Read More About Countermarketing
Featured
Apr 21, 2017
Apr 21, 2017
Building on the Institute’s work in youth countermarketing of unhealthy food, several Institute faculty and students, with Lori Dorfman at the Berkeley Media Studies Group have recently published an article in the 2017 Annual Review of Public Health on lessons from effective tobacco countermarketing for efforts to combat unhealthy food and alcohol marketing to prevent noncommunicable disease.
Apr 21, 2017
Oct 28, 2016
Youth Countermarketing Convening
Oct 28, 2016
On October 27, 2016, CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute held its first Youth Countermarketing Convening which brought together organizations, groups, and individuals across NYC that lead youth food justice programs and/or that are interested in creating or expanding youth food countermarketing work. Organizations represented at the meeting include: Children’s Aid Society, FoodCorps, Community Food Advocates, GrowNYC, City Harvest, Bronx Health Reach, New Settlement, CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, and the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
Sep 13, 2016
Policy Brief: Countermarketing Unhealthy Food: Lessons from Tobacco
Sep 13, 2016
Nicholas Freudenberg, Chris Palmedo, Eleni Murphy and Sarah Garza for the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute
In the next decade, experts predict that diet-related diseases may overtake tobacco as the leading cause of premature death and preventable illness in New York City and around the world. Many factors have contributed to the rise of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other diet-related conditions. One reason is relentless marketing of unhealthy food by food and beverage companies. Each year, U.S. food companies spend more than $2 billion targeting children with ads, mostly for highly processed foods high in sugar, salt and unhealthy fats, the products most associated with diet-related diseases. As advocates explore solutions to this impending public health crisis, one strategy that shows promise is countermarketing.
