WHO urges action on junk food marketing

WHO urges action on junk food marketing

Posted: 28 January 2011

From the Food Magazine, 28 January 2011

The World Health Organisation is urging countries to take action to reduce the exposure of the marketing of unhealthy foods to children by implementing a set of internationally-endorsed measures. This follows recent speculation in Australia that voluntary efforts taken by Industry to reduce such marketing are ineffective.

According to the WHO, television advertising is responsible for a large share of the marketing of foods high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS). The WHO said advertisements on such foods influenced children's food preferences, purchase requests and consumption patterns.

In May 2010, WHO Member States endorsed a new set of recommendations on the marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to children. The recommendations called for national and international action to reduce the exposure of children to marketing messages that promote foods high in saturated fats, trans-fatty acids, free sugars, or salt, and to reduce the use of powerful techniques to market these foods to children.

"Non-communicable diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, cancers and diabetes, today represent a leading threat to human health and socioeconomic development," said Dr Ala Alwan, WHO's Assistant Director-General for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and mental health. 

Dr Alwan said implementing the recommendations by countries would strengthen their ability to foster and encourage healthy dietary choices for children and promote the maintenance of a healthy weight.

WHO data shows that 43 million pre-school children worldwide are obese or overweight.

Australia’s efforts

While there has yet to be legislation in Australia that strictly monitors or restricts the marketing of HFSS foods to children, the Australian food and beverage industry has begun efforts to crackdown on such marketing. 

In 2008, the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) introduced the Responsible Children’s Marketing Initiative, a voluntary vow made by food and beverage manufacturers to introduce a code of conduct not to advertise unhealthy foods to children under 12, unless they promoted a healthy diet and lifestyle.

The AFGC released a report last year on the effectiveness of the Initiative, titled, Food and Beverage Advertising to Children Activity Report. The report found that out of the 410 food and beverage advertisements from March to May 2010, only 10 were for HFSS foods targeting children – representing 2.4 per cent of all food and beverage advertisements.

According to the AFGC, the study included Preschool (P) and Children (C) programs as well as a “broad range of programs on a 24-hour basis.”

The AFGC said the report did no cover television programs watched as a family because parents were primarily responsible for promoting the importance of healthy eating to their children during this time.
 

The report has been slammed by critics since its release in December 2010 .

The Obesity Policy Coaltion, which includes the Cancer Council Victoria, Diabetes Australia Victoria, Vic Health and Deakin University’s WHO Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention, claimed the Initiative as “in-effective self-regulation [for] decreasing children’s exposure to junk food advertising.”

“Shows such as The Simpsons, Modern Family and Junior Masterchef, which are some of the highest rating programs watched by children, were not included in this report," said Senior Policy Adviser, Jane Martin, for the Obesity Policy Coalition.

"Junior Masterchef is a children's cooking show featuring child contestants, and was one of the highest rating programs for kids under 12 last year. But the AFGC says this is not a children's program. If high rating programs had been included we'd expect these figures to be far worse.

"There are also lots of examples of ads that feature children that the industry claims don't target children, including an ad for Kellogg's LCMs which showed children in a schoolyard trying to guess the flavour of an LCM snack bar in a child's lunchbox.”

"We call on the government to step in, end the charade of self-regulation and implement effective legislation to protect children from junk food advertising," Martin said.

Researchers at the University of Sydney and the Cancer Council NSW conducted a study last year evaluating the impact of the AFGC Initiative.

The study, published in the International Journal of Pediatric Obesity, showed companies that had signed the code had reduced their junk-food advertising, but this reduction was cancelled out by non-signatories.

The research team, led by Lesley King of the University of Sydney, monitored food and junk food advertising on three Sydney TV channels in May last year and compared the frequency with similar periods in 2006 and 2007.

Of the 36 companies advertising junk food last year only 14 had signed the code introduced by the Australian Food and Grocery Council five months earlier to limit the marketing of junk foods to children.

The researchers concluded that the voluntary code did not adequately protect children from the marketing of junk food.