Despite existing federal and voluntary standards for alcohol advertisements in place to curtail potentially damaging content and protect public health, a new study found that customers are still exposed to risky content and messages.
For the study, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers analyzed 1,800 different ads for beer, spirits and alco-pops that appeared between 2008 and 2010 in national magazines. They found that though most of these advertisements adhered to the existing federal and voluntary standards of advertising, they continued to promote alcohols as healthy and associated it with weight loss and active lifestyles, according to a press release.
"Considering advertising's demonstrated power to shape behavior, it's important that the public health community be knowledgeable about alcohol advertising content, particularly when it reaches underage audiences," said study author Katherine C. Smith, associate professor with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "Our findings suggest further limitations and enhanced federal oversight may be necessary to protect public health."
Alcohol is heavily marketed in the United States with companies spending above $4 billion annually on promotions. According to prior statistics from 2008 and 2010, an estimated $847 million was spent on magazine advertising alone. Let alone the money spent, 14 studies conducted in the last 5 years found that most young adults were exposed to smoking or drinking through advertising, thus, increasing the risk of them adopting these unhealthy habits.
Marketers are encouraged to promote such products all the more because federal regulations on alcohol marketing are minimal. The regulations forbid marketers to make claims that are intended to deceive, and they cannot include statements judged indecent or which make health or curative claims. In addition to federal limits, marketing is also governed by a system of self-regulation under the Beer Institute and the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S., both of whose codes emphasize responsible practices on the part of alcohol producers.
"The devil is in the details when it comes to regulation, and there are currently very few details as to what constitutes unacceptable practices regarding alcohol advertising," said study author and CAMY director David Jernigan, also an associate professor with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "When we see time and time again examples of problematic ads that comply with existing regulations and industry standards, we must ask ourselves what more can be done to protect the public's health."
In 2003, the U.S. government took measures to reduce alcohol consumption in the country by requesting marketers to decrease youth exposure to alcohol advertising.
"Given the clear difficulties with regulating content, tightening guidelines about when and where companies may place their ads would also help protect youth from problematic alcohol advertising," Jernigan said.
Alcohol is the most commonly used and abused drug among youth in the United States, and is responsible for more than 4,700 annual deaths among underage youth.
Findings of the study were published in the American Journal of Public Health.
