The Easter bunny and the chocolate conspiracy
By Nathan Grills
Chocolate manufacturers around the world know that the Easter Bunny (EB) is highly effective at enticing us to eat chocolate. Up to 28 per cent of one manufacturer’s yearly chocolate sales occur in the lead up to Easter. Another company produces about 500 million of one particular Easter egg variety — the United Kingdom’s most sold Easter confectionery.
The EB has been popularised and exploited by chocolate manufacturers and other companies selling this energy-dense, nutrient-poor (EDNP) food. Since when did bunnies lay eggs made of chocolate? Is this a conspiracy to sell lucrative chocolate eggs?
I have argued that Santa Claus is a public health pariah who advertises unhealthy products to children and normalises obesity, but what about the EB — is this bunny an innocent fairytale character or another unhealthy childhood role model?
Eggs, rabbits, Easter and chocolate
For millennia, eggs were gifts to celebrate the coming of spring, while rabbits and hares represented fertility and new life after winter. With the commercialisation of Easter in the 20th century, chocolate Easter eggs grew in popularity and, through some excellent marketing, chocolate manufacturers bred a chocolate egg-bearing rabbit. Then, in a move that would have made Willy Wonka proud, they made Easter bunnies of chocolate and sold both the bunny and the eggs!
EDNP foods, obesity and chronic disease
Although the EB’s delivery practices may provide a better role model than Santa’s, with its vigorous round-the-world hopping sustained only by carrots, the EB may have a more direct impact on obesity by promoting and distributing EDNP food. Excess chocolate has been linked to dental caries and obesity, and obesity has been linked to a significantly higher risk of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, gall bladder disease, liver disease, heart disease and stroke, and to a small increased risk of cancer (breast, colorectal and endometrial cancers).
Chocoholics and EDNP food companies quote studies showing that cocoa polyphenols protect against cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, such studies do not adequately account for confounders, such as comorbidities, or the effect on those with existing CVD who are advised to avoid EDNP food. Also ignored is the fact that most Easter eggs have only a small proportion of cocoa solids and high levels of hydrogenated vegetable oil (trans fats). The negative health effects of chocolate are minimal when it is consumed sensibly, but at Easter this seems to be rare.
Marketing, exploitation, children and advertising
In the same way that Santa was a feature of Coca-Cola advertising, the EB’s role is to sell chocolate eggs to children. This is not the first time that iconic childhood figures have been used successfully to market products to children and create associations between a product and happy times. Fictional characters such as Ronald McDonald have become more familiar to children in the United States than the American President or the Pope.
International reviews have found that heavy marketing of EDNP food, high in salt, sugar and fat, is likely to have deleterious effects on children’s diet. According to the World Health Organization, such advertising contributes to children being overweight and obese and is an important area for preventive action. Given that the EB’s marketing may influence hundreds of millions of children, chocolate intake only needs to increase in one in 10 000 children to have a deleterious effect on the health of millions of children.
In Australia, the National Preventative Health Taskforce recommends phasing out “premium offers, toys, competitions and the use of promotional characters, including celebrities and cartoon characters, used to market EDNP food and beverages to children”. Similar regulation is occurring in the UK, the US, Canada, Norway and Sweden. In Sweden and Norway and the Canadian province of Quebec, there are extensive legislative prohibitions on advertising to children.
These commercial advertising laws might mean the end of the EB in advertising; after all, wherever the EB hops, it is advertising to children. As a “promotional character”, will the EB be phased out in Australia?
This is an extract of the research paper published in this week's edition MJA. • Volume 194 Number 8 • 18 April 2011.
Dr Grills is a Public Health Physician in the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, and is also based at the Nossal Institute for Global Health.