Consumers are often deceived by advertising language.
Ms. Li's son, who just turned 3 this year, looks much shorter than other children of the same age, with thin body and sparse hair, and was diagnosed with malnutrition. Ms. Li said that after the child was weaned, she lived with her grandparents and never ate well. One day grandpa saw the advertisement of "Nutrition Express" drink and bought it for his grandson. The result is a habit. Children now drink 3-4 bottles of nutrition express every day, and rice and fruit are basically untouched.
"Sweet milk pure juice, 15 kinds of nutrition, one step at a time! If you don't have time to eat breakfast, drink the nutrition express! " Ms. Li admits that this advertisement is like describing a nutritious breast milk substitute, and it is hard not to be tempted. There is something like "sleepy, tired, and drink red bull!" Advertising language makes Red Bull a must-have drink for many people to stay up late; The slogan "Thick soup can make soup in fifteen minutes, which is nutritious and delicious" has attracted many housewives who have no time to cook. The statement that potato chips are "not fried" is also misleading.
Counting the TV food advertisements around you can always pick out one or two problems that run counter to healthy living habits. Wang Qianhu, Assistant Secretary-General of China Consumers Association, said: "These slogans are not too problematic at first, but if you think about them carefully, they will be misleading in terms of nutrition and health. Manufacturers should think more about consumers and pay attention to details. "
Experts comment on the misunderstanding of advertising health
For the above advertising slogans, experts said that consumers can easily fall into the trap set by businesses if they are not careful.
"If you don't have time to eat breakfast, just drink the nutrition express!" Many people's direct reaction to this sentence is "a bottle of nutrition express can replace a day's breakfast." Professor Ma Liping, vice chairman of Guangxi Nutrition Society, thinks this advertising language is very unreasonable. "In addition to a small amount of milk, the nutrition express contains chemicals such as additives, and a bottle of nutrition is not as good as a cup of soybean milk."
Ma Liping said that the breakfast standard for normal people should be 50-70 grams of staple food, some high-protein foods and a small amount of fruits and vegetables. Nutrition Express, a kind of beverage, not only can't provide the nutrition needed by human body, but will make people consume a lot of food additives. Long-term drinking will lead to malnutrition and seriously damage the body's immunity. Therefore, the nutrition express cannot replace breakfast at all.
"sleepy, tired, and drink red bull!" Some studies have said that it is not suitable to drink a lot of functional drinks such as red bull when the human body is extremely tired. An Englishman died of a heart attack after drinking four cans in a row. Ma Liping said that caffeinated drinks such as Red Bull can relieve fatigue to a certain extent, but drinking them immediately when you are tired or sleepy will stimulate the central nervous system, cause a series of effects such as faster heartbeat and higher blood pressure, and lead to cardiovascular diseases.
The thick soup treasure, which claims that "the soup can be cooked in fifteen minutes and is healthy and nutritious", actually includes flavor enhancers, edible flavors, sugar, thickeners and spices. In addition to pig bone meal and pig bone marrow oil on the ingredients list, its nutritional value is completely incomparable to the soup cooked at home. If consumers are misled by advertising language and often use thick soup treasure when cooking soup, it will make "drinking soup to absorb nutrition" meaningless. Tong, an expert member of the Food Nutrition Committee of China Cuisine Association, also reminded that the salt content of thick soup treasure is quite high, and excessive salt intake is very harmful to health, especially for patients with hypertension and kidney disease.
"Non-fried" potato chips are actually baked with oil, not without oil. And potato chips are high in salt. After testing various brands and practices of potato chips in many European countries, it is concluded that acrylamide in potato chips and automobile exhaust gas are equally harmful to human body, that is to say, eating potato chips is equivalent to inhaling automobile exhaust gas.
Four measures to avoid business tricks
Nowadays, TV advertisements are overwhelming. How to regulate them? Wang Qianhu said, first of all, businesses should be self-disciplined in fierce competition; Secondly, relevant industry associations should take the lead in formulating qualitative and quantitative industry advertising norms; Finally, health misleading in advertising language is generally implicit. Consumers must "pay more attention" when watching advertisements, and learn to distinguish the propaganda skills of businesses, especially the following points.
Pay special attention to key publicity. Merchants generally make a fuss about the selling points they think are worth promoting, but they often exaggerate. Special attention should be paid to introducing new food concepts, such as "non-frying" and so on. This may just be the packaging skill of the merchants to change the soup without changing the medicine.
Avoid advertisements with the theme of beauty, children and animals. Li Jingwen, Ph.D., Department of Advertising, School of Journalism and Communication, Wuhan University, said that this is the 3B principle of advertising creativity. Advertising, as a means of expression, conforms to the human nature of caring about their own lives and is the easiest to win the attention and love of consumers, so we should pay special attention to it when we see it in advertisements.
Food labels can't just look at the shelf life. When looking at the ingredients and nutrients, try to choose less foods with more chemical components and choose more foods made of fresh raw materials. Avoid obvious harmful components such as trans fatty acids and preservatives.
Follow the principle of diverse and fresh diet. In daily diet, people should eat a wide range of foods, fresh food is better. Carefully choose the reprocessed food advertised by the merchants.