Children in the UK are being warned about the way food and drink companies use impulse triggers and merchandising through a new website called .
It highlights the different strategies used by food companies to get them to buy their products, under the heading "Who is messing with my mind?"
One of the six main strategies is called "Link it to Footie", which reads:
"Lots of people love watching football! So one of the best ways to get young people to notice the marketing for a food product is to link it to a famous football player, a popular football team, or a football event.
"Who's your favourite player? David Beckham? He's a very, very popular footballer. That's why two of the biggest soft drinks companies in the world paid David Beckham to be photographed with their cola -- to make you think the drinks are cool."
The website is part of charity the Food Commission's campaign to help children fight back against what it describes as the "onslaught" of junk-food marketing, and thus tackle the problem of obesity.
Along with an extensive look at sports marketing, advertising and marketing in general, the site has information on food labelling and nutrition, and highlights the way packaging imagery can bear little relation to what is in the product.
The commission lobbies for a complete ban on marketing junk food to children, but says that until it succeeds, children need to be more savvy about how they are being targeted.
Kath Dalmeny of the Food Commission said: "Marketers are using techniques that fly under the radar of parental control, using new technologies to build direct relationships with children."
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