This paper seeks to explore the dynamic between the food and beverage industry's promotion of unhealthy foods and beverages to children and adolescents, IMC, and power. It proposes a conceptual model that identifies three characteristics of IMC that through the enabling processes of legitimacy, hegemony and exploitation help to reinforce and expand the powerful position of this industry. Coupled with these practices is society's acceptance of such behaviour within the context of our neo-liberal, consumer-culture environment. The proposed conceptual framework builds on existing works within the macromarketing discipline related to the food industry, e.g. Witkoski's (2007) analysis of food marketing and obesity in developing countries and discussion of ethical and public policy issues, and Redmond's (2009) analysis of regulatory failure of packaged foods in the United States
