Is Green the new Healthy?

Healthy was the “hot appeal” of the last decade: Pretty much everything was sold as being healthy. With more restrictions on what can be called “healthy” it seems advertisers are switching to “green” as the must-have attribute – at least if defra is to be believed. defra now issued guidance as to what is really green – and should be labeled as such. However, comparing around 500 television adverts collected in 2000 and 2010, only around 1.6% made overt “natural/in harmony with nature/in harmony with nature” claims in 2010. Only a small rise from 1.1% in 2000. The UK is also far behind Germany, where more than 6.5% of television adverts made “natural” claims. The question is – will issuing guidance curb the trend? And will it prevent misuse of the claims?
If we look at the trends regarding health-claims, they have actually increased: From 2.7% in 2000 to 3.3% in 2010. Of course, comparing the percentage of claims does say nothing about the truthfulness of these claims. But it would seem interesting if the amount of “healthy products” advertised really increased – or if the way the claims are made has just become more sophisticated.

What do you think? Is green the new healthy? Will we be sold everything as green and healthy soon?