Never Mind the Ethics - Get Children Reading

Today we are alarmed at the report in The Bookseller that Kobo and Fast food chain McDonald’s are teaming with, Hodder Children’s Books and National Literacy Trust (NLT) to give away ebooks to children when they buy a Happy Meal Box at the fast food chain.

Every Happy Meal box will come with an e-book voucher, which will allow customers to download a Famous Five book by Enid Blyton from Hodder Children’s Books. This new promotion is in addition to the existing one, where boxes contain one of six of Blyton’s Secret Seven stories and a £1 voucher that is redeemable to buy a Secret Seven or Famous Five book at WHSmith or Eason.

The World Health Organization (WHO) regards childhood obesity as one of the most serious global public health challenges for the 21st century. The latest UK National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) figures, for 2012/13, show that 18.9% of children in Year 6 (aged 10-11) were obese and a further 14.4% were overweight. Of children in Reception (aged 4-5), 9.3% were obese and another 13.0% were overweight. This means almost a third of 10-11 year olds and over a fifth of 4-5 year olds were overweight or obese. Results from the Health Survey for England (HSE), claim that some 28% of children aged 2 to 15 were classed as either overweight or obese. However, it should be noted that imbalanced diet is only one cause of the steep rise in childhood obesity

Early this week we wrote 'Do we continue to have Ketchup on our hands today?' referred to the article on the content of McDonald’s Hamburgers 'Hamburger Chef Jamie Oliver Proves McDonald’s Burgers “Unfit for human consumption”' and questioned the industry’s continual support of promotional the ‘free book’ programmes via McDonalds.

Kobo is probably getting used to controversy.

On a separate ethical note, last month, we raised in our article 'Does Rakuten Deal In Blood eCommerce?' the exposure by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), of Japanese retail giant Rakuten, who own the likes of Play.com and ebook operator Kobo. Their report claims that Rakuten is the world’s biggest online marketplace for elephant ivory and whale meat products. 

On a further separate ethical note, last year Kobo, WHSmith's eBooks partner also had to quickly respond to complaints that pornographic e-book material appeared alongside children’s literature on the W H Smith website. Kobo said this was as a result of “a select group of publishers and authors violating the self-publishing policies of our platform". John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee at the time, said it was “it is unacceptable that anyone could access this material within a click of a mouse.”

Some may suggest that the apparent lack of an ethical code by some would lead others to question the true price being adopting in getting people reading.

McReading to a Healthier Future?

Charlie Powell, campaigns director of the Children's Food Campaign - an alliance of 150 education bodies, health groups and children's charities says it's hard for parents to stand up to the barrage of junk food advertising. ‘There are huge hurdles they have to surmount to keep their children healthy. It's stuff that wasn't around in years gone by and food manufacturers are very sophisticated in the techniques they use to appeal to children.’

Once again we have to ask why the trade is continuing to tie the promotion of reading with Fast Food and openly supporting McDonalds advertising and promotion to children. Earlier this year McDonalds announced a two-year children’s books campaign in the UK, committing to "hand out more than 15 million books by the end of 2014” through a £1 book offer on its Happy Meal boxes. This has the backing of the UK’s National Literacy Trust, enabling customers to buy books for £1, with a token redeemable on selected books at W H Smith. Since we first reported th eUK campaign 'Does Publishing Have Ketchup On Its Hands?', we have reported on a similar campaign in Portugal, 'More Ketchup with Books on the Side' and now one has been announced in the US.

American Heart Association state that about one in three American kids and teens is overweight or obese, nearly triple the rate in 1963. They claim that childhood obesity is now the No. 1 health concern among parents in the United States, topping drug abuse and smoking. FRAC (the US Food research and action centre) claim that about a quarter of 2-5 year olds and one-third of school-age children (including adolescents) are overweight or obese in the U.S. (Ogden et al., 2012). The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention claim that Childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and tripled in adolescents in the past 30 years. The percentage of children aged 6–11 years in the United States who were obese increased from 7% in 1980 to nearly 18% in 2010. Also, the percentage of adolescents aged 12–19 years who were obese increased from 5% to 18% over the same period.

They also state that a ‘healthy lifestyle habits, including healthy eating and physical activity, can lower the risk of becoming obese and developing related diseases and that the dietary and physical activity behaviour of children and adolescents are influenced by many sectors of society.'

Against this background the UK McDonald's vice-president of marketing Alistair Macrow said: ‘We're excited to leverage our scale, our partnerships and our presence in communities across the country to help millions of mums, dads and children find the fun in reading. Our restaurants are designed to be colourful, exciting places that children and their parents come to for a treat and we're looking forward to books becoming a part of that family experience.’

Also the UK National Literacy Trust director Jonathan Douglas said the organisation was backing the campaign. "We are delighted that McDonald's is extending its commitment to giving families access to quality, affordable books.’

November is National Literacy Month in the US, and McDonald’s stores right across the US will give away 20 million books, which will feature McDonald’s characters. They are partnering with RIF (Reading is Fundamental), the largest children’s literacy non-profit in the U.S., which will be giving away 100,000 copies of the books to children who do not have easy access to books.

Ubong Ituen, vice president of marketing for McDonald’s USA says, ‘This is the latest step in our ongoing efforts to enrich the lives of families, and part of a broader book strategy that will combine the fun of the Happy Meal, new partners and technology to inspire more family reading time.’

It’s somewhat ironic that one of the interactive ebooks featured, which were developed by DK Publishing, include an interactive digital version of McDonald’s children’s meal print book, ‘The Goat Who Ate Everything.’

Some would ask whether some organisations have potentially got ‘ketchup on their hands’, in the blind pursuit of reading, at what would appear to be the cost of the health of their readers? 

More Ketchup With Books On The Side

Earlier this year we wrote an article, ‘Does Publishing Have Ketchup On Its Hands?’, which was about the promotion of free books with fast food from McDonalds. Some said ‘so what?’, one commented that ‘McDonalds are engaging in a wholly legal promotion, one which also encourages literacy among children and supports the waning fortunes of a primarily bricks-and-mortar bookseller'. Some of the personal emails we received also suppored of a position of, ‘books at any cost’.  

Today we read in eBookPortugal that a promotion is being launched in Portugal that is offering digital books for free with a Happy Meal from McDonalds. The programme from Happy Studio has some 12 titles including "The Major Cities of the World" and "The Wonders of Nature." So parents can bring in their kids knowing that they can get fat and learn at the same time!

Last night we watched another episode of 'Family Guy', where the evil tobacco company took over the Toy factory where Peter worked and promoted the least competent, (Peter) to President. Their motive was to introduce kids to smoking through toys and have someone who knew no better at the top. Thanks to Stewie the plan unraveled and even Peter saw the light.

Some 20 years ago the board of B&Q employed an Environment Controller. A move unheard of at the time and one aimed at ensuring we had an ethical approach to sustainable resources, supplies and also that our suppliers in the Far East and elsewhere adhered to acceptable standards of safety and employment. Today such policies are standard across the majority of business.

So the question we once again ask is, why are we allowing books to be used to promote fast food and to children? We recognise that diet is only one part of the children obesity problem, but it is a major contributor. It is claimed that some 25% of boys and 33% of girls in the UK that are aged between two and 19 years are overweight or obese. 

Not convinced then here are some sobering reads:

http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk/children/childhood_obesity.htm

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2340641/Childhood-obesity-cases-fold-decade-Nearly-21-000-aged-19-treated-hospital-weight-related-conditions.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/0/21702372

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19661085
http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/obesity/facts.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/yrbs/pdf/us_obesity_combo.pdf 

The world has always been full of double standards and hypocrisy, but do we honestly support that reading a book is worth the health of a child?

Does Publishing Have Ketchup On Its Hands?

At a time when many are trying to achieve their New Year resolutions to get fitter, TV schedules are littered with the dangers of obesity, the news has increased coverage on the increased obesity of not only of adults, but also children and also the Hairy Bikers top the charts with a book about their own battle to fight their obesity, it is somewhat cynical that the industry celebrates the promotion of 15 million children’s books by McDonalds. Some would that this is a somewhat cynical promotion of heavily discounted children’s books through the sale of what many would regard as junk food.

For the next two years McDonald's is effectively giving customers a voucher for discounted participating children’s books to be used to redeem titles for £1 through WHS. They claim 9 out of 10 parents responded positively to their similar campaign last year and asked them to do more book promotions. Why wouldn't they at £1 a title?

The National Literacy Trust are fully behind the promotion and obviously believe that inducing parents to feed their children in MacDonalds is the answer to getting more children reading and can make a real difference to child literary and ‘well-rounded children’.

It’s as if we have ignored the Jamie’s campaign for better school meals, ignored the news about the increase in obesity, ignored all the TV and media coverage on the dangers of unhealthy eating and junk food, ignored our own industry charts and diet books and rum to pick up a few pieces of silver instead and done so under the banner that it will improve the numbers of children that read.

We have seen the cost of unhealthy eating and lifestyles on the NHS. We have seen proactive legislation and taxation levies on the advertising of smoking and dangers of tobacco. We have banned tobacco companies cynically endorsing sport. We are now witnessing a similar approach to alcohol abuse, but we still fail to grapple with the soft drink and junk food endorsements of sporting events such as the Olympics. Its as if money still talks louder than logic.

The publishing industry, publishers and authors should step back today and ask themselves if they are happy to endorse this somewhat cynical promotion which is clearly aimed at children and whether they will, as a result, be seen to have ‘ketchup ‘ on their hands.