Linking pop acts' junk food ads to fat kids like comparing apple to iPhone

You know what you don't see advertised much? Apples.

Beyonce isn't out on tour touting recent studies linking apples to weight loss and fighting types of cancer. Britney Spears has yet to do a spot about how apple juice was one of the earliest prescribed antidepressants.

Advertising is largely the realm of brands with big money behind them, and so the idealistic notion that there would be a pricey marketing push for a generic fruit commensurate with the campaign for, say, Doritos, is a bit like comparing apples to iPhones.

A new study out of New York University, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, finds that music stars are used to sell young people a variety of food and beverages, the vast majority of which are almost exclusively unhealthy.

Researchers suspect a link between celebrity-fueled advertising of fast food, sweets and sugary drinks to increasing youth obesity rates.

But when brands such as Pepsi or Oreos cut a deal with, say, One Direction, it's likely outbidding Coca-Cola and Snickers, not apples, kale or quinoa. That's because the major brands behind the stuff with the empty calories spend big bucks on their marketing campaigns and spare no expense on top-name talent.

Food and drink companies spend almost $2 billion a year to target young people. Teens are exposed to something like 5,900 ads a year, younger kids 4,700, according a statistic cited in the study.

An organization such as the U.S. Apple Association — which promotes the product and interests of about 7,500 apple growers, hundreds of apple-related companies, and nearly 40 state and regional apple associations — simply isn't suited to compete.

There are plenty of commercials for hard cider, apple ale and apple-flavored liquor. But apart from Johnny Appleseed, the snake in the garden of Eden and maybe your mom, name some apple polisher who has regularly touted the actual fruit as simply a healthy snack?

None of the top music stars the NYU study identified endorsed fruits, vegetables, or whole grains and only one — South Korean pop star Psy with his Super Bowl pistachio ad a while back — pushed a natural food deemed healthy.

But that's a function of who's advertising at least as much as the people those advertisers hire to help, and it's not unique to music acts.

These findings echo another study lead author Marie Bragg, a food policy and obesity researcher and assistant professor at NYU, conducted three years earlier while pursuing her doctorate at Yale University.

It also was published in Pediatrics and observed the same lopsided tilt toward plugging unhealthy food and drink when it came to celebrity athletes.

That 2013 study — tracking 100 top sports superstars, including LeBron James, Serena Williams and Peyton Manning — found food and beverages accounted for nearly one-quarter of all their endorsements.

Nearly 80 percent of the foods they plugged were "energy-dense and nutrient-poor."

As for the beverages, more than 90 percent got all their calories from added sugar.

But celebrities do the paid endorsements because that's where the money is. You can't endorse something if there's no ad in which to appear. Public appearances can't be sponsored unless someone foots the bill.

It would be great if all concerned popped for a public service campaign to promote better eating habits. (Try Paul McCartney, an outspoken advocate of a vegetarian diet.) But that won't stop the big brands from carpet-bombing media platforms of all sizes with their sales pitch.

Given that environment, teaching young people how to consume advertising and separating salesmanship from salient facts is every bit as important as educating them how to balance or replace junk food with healthier fare.

It's critical to recognize that once someone is paid to perform, it's a paid performance and not necessarily a heartfelt recommendation.

Perhaps fans of "Saturday Night Live" alum Bill Hader noticed he replaced "Iron Man" Robert Downey Jr. as the voice of Planters advertising mascot Mr. Peanut in 2013.

What makes that an interesting choice is Hader, in a 2014 TBS appearance with Conan O'Brien, told an amusing anecdote about being rushed to the emergency room because of a bad allergic reaction to … peanuts.

How do you like them apples?

Twitter @phil_rosenthal

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A version of this article appeared in print on June 07, 2016, in the Business section of the Chicago Tribune with the headline "An apple a day keeps famous endorsers away - Celebrities feed on junk food ads, NYU study finds" — Today's paperToday's paper | Subscribe