Shrek's back but that doesn't mean we can ogre-eat

Shrek making kids ogre-eat?

Posted: 04 June 2007

From the Sunday Age, April 29, 2007

Everyone's favourite ogre, preparing to make his third visit to Australian cinemas in June, is under fire for pushing a "fast food is good" message to young fans.

The release of Shrek the Third is being hailed as a marketing success by Paramount Pictures Australia.

Managing director Mike Selwyn says the selling of the movie, which opens on June 7, will be helped by "relationships and tie-ins with McDonald's and Kellogg's, so Happy Meals and cereals".

Nutritionists and community groups aren't so happy.

Australian children are getting fatter. A Victorian survey last year indicated that 93 per cent of children filled their lunch box with an average of three junk food items a day. "We're not seeing any success so far," says nutritionist Rosemary Stanton.

"Kids have picked up the message that they have to play more sport, but they're still getting fatter. Kids are expending some calories but then taking in more from the products of the sponsors of the sport."

Barbara Biggins of Young Media Australia, an organisation that promotes the healthy development of children, says "there's good evidence now that linking children's characters encourages children to buy".

"The problem is that the characters are linked with the fatty, sugary, salty fast food and so the manufacturers of those foods are playing on the children's attachment to their characters to sell them products that are unhealthy." She says research has led to international calls to prohibit the use of kids' favourites this way.

In the US, the ogre has caused quite a stir, with the group Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood lobbying to have Shrek stripped of his role as a healthy eating spokesman. It says he is an unsuitable role model given the range of junk foods he also spruiks.

And Shrek's charm makes him a potent marketing tool, says Ms Stanton. "You feel warm towards him. He has an honesty which really betrays children's trust if this character is used to promote foods that should be occasional only."

US investigative journalist Eric Schlosser's best-selling Fast Food Nation lifted the lid on a nation's deadly addiction to junk food. He damns studios putting animated figures on the marketing payroll: "If you're a movie studio, the major provider of entertainment for children, it's incredibly irresponsible to be allowing a popular character like Shrek — or any other favourite kids' character — to endorse all sorts of wildly unhealthy products."

Ms Biggins is equally critical: "Don't manufacturers have the wit or the imagination to promote their products to children except by exploiting their fondness for their television and film characters?"

Last year Disney said it would not renew its Happy Meal promotions with McDonald's, ending a 10-year deal worth $2 billion. DreamWorks stepped in to fill the gap, signing a two-year deal beginning with Shrek the Third.

Other studios have defended their tie-ins. Universal chairman Marc Schmuger appeals to the spirit of the free market: "We're not forcing anyone to eat fast food. We're encouraging people to have freedom of choice. It's up to the individual or the family to decide where they want to eat."

Warners Entertainment president Alan Horn mounts a similar defence: "When the Surgeon-General puts a disclaimer on a Burger King burger saying, 'Consuming this food is dangerous for your health', then we'll get out of the fast food business."

With LA TIMES.