New guidelines released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) are aimed at pushing governments to enforce stricter regulations on marketing unhealthy foods high in saturated fatty acids, trans-fatty acids, free sugars or salt (HFSS) to children.
The global agency has slammed what it calls predatory practices by fast food companies in its drive to limit the power of unhealthy foods marketing to children based on concern around the global childhood obesity epidemic, especially in low- and middle-income countries.
Almost no progress has been made in batting back childhood obesity rates in more than two decades, reports Health Policy Watch.
“Marketing is done to promote products, and promoting products is done to improve profits,” said Francesco Branca, WHO director of nutrition and food safety. “This is a classic situation where there is a conflict between the objectives of private entities and public health interests.”
The updated guidance follows a decade of stalled progress since the World Health Assembly first endorsed recommendations to protect children from harmful food marketing in 2010. Thirteen years on, policy coverage worldwide remains poor, with just 60 countries adopting policies restricting food marketing to children. Only 20 have passed mandatory legislation.
And the laws that are in place often have gaps. For example, policies often only protect children under five, and many do not cover digital marketing, the main source of ad exposure for children in a digitalised world.
Nearly 40m children under five were estimated to be overweight or obese in 2020 – 41% them in low- and lower-middle-income countries – and another 337m between five and 19 suffered the same conditions in 2016, the most recent year for which data are available.
Industry efforts to address the negative health effects of their food products exist, but continue to fall short. Interference in policymaking by the food industry through lobby groups remains commonplace, often resulting in weakened, delayed or defeated policies.
With no indication that industry will voluntarily restrict itself in more meaningful ways, WHO officials say it is time to accept the market realities and impose regulations from the top down.
Marketing harmful foods to children is not just a question of healthy diets: it is a question of children’s rights, WHO said, its conclusion based on the nearly 200 studies – of children’s exposure to food marketing and its influence on eating-related attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours – reviewed to establish its updated guidance.
“Arguments in defence of marketing fade when the marketed products harm health and the marketing poses a threat to children’s rights,” WHO said.
“Marketing is a recognised means to promote products that are harmful to health.”
The omnipresence of marketing for unhealthy foods in children’s daily lives – whether on television, at school, on social media or at sports clubs – violates those rights, as does their non-consensual exposure to advertisements with the power to dictate health outcomes for them when they are adults, WHO said.
“Countries that are State Parties to the Convention are obliged to take action toward the fulfilment and realisation of children’s rights. This should include actions to protect them from marketing of HFSS foods… which negatively affects … the rights to health, adequate and nutritious food, privacy and freedom from exploitation.”
Dietary risks caused nearly 8m deaths and more than 10% of all disability-adjusted life years lost to NCDs in 2019. The evidence conclusively shows that marketing foods high in saturated fats, sugars and salt can influence children’s dietary preferences, and governments must do what they can to prevent children from becoming one of those statistics, it said.
Guideline for food marketing
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