Kids find online games like Pop-Tart Slalom and Chips Ahoy Soccer Shootout fun. The proof is in the pudding: The traffic to game sites is huge. The Kaiser Family Foundation, a food-industry watchdog,
singles out such games that make kids the subject of marketing efforts to sell food, reports the Associated Press. Marketers hope that by playing their so-called "advergames," kids will remember their
brands the next time they feel like having a snack. The Kaiser Family's report didn't pass judgment on advergames, but it did raise a debate over the food industry's role in childhood obesity.
"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. Food-industry execs and representatives counter by saying many food companies are offering healthier alternatives. McDonald's, for example, led the category in
apple sales last year. That may be, but it's individual brands like Chips Ahoy and Pop-Tarts that sponsor these online games. Kaiser researchers found 85 percent of the top food brands that use TV to
target kids also use the Web. Their sites were visited more than 12.2 million times in the second quarter of 2005; that figure doesn't include sites that sell ads to these food brands. Other findings:
three-quarters of their Web sites host advergames, two-thirds ask kids to refer friends, half host TV commercials or Webisodes, and more than one-quarter have information about eating a healthy diet.
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