WHO calls for children to be protected from advertising of unhealthy products

Today, advertising of food and beverages is a fairly developed industry, and children and teenagers are one of the main target audiences. Advertising can be found everywhere: on TV screens, on Internet sites, in social networks, on the street and even in educational institutions. Currently, the practice of sponsorship agreements and brand placement is widespread, which allows for maximum impact on the consumer.

Advertising of fatty and unhealthy food was no exception, for example, in Greece 65% of commercials were associated with the promotion of products with a high content of sugar, fat, and salt. As practice shows, children react very sharply to advertising that can influence their taste preferences. Habits are formed at the early stages of a child's development, and today the real problem is the formation of a habit of eating unhealthy food in children, which in the future can lead to the development of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and other health problems.

Amanda Long, CEO of the global consumer rights organization, noted that manufacturers spend billions of dollars on advertising. All over the world, the younger generation is faced with bright and memorable advertising of high-calorie products that have undergone strong technological processing and contain huge amounts of fat, salt, and sugar.

In a number of countries, the government is concerned about the current situation, and some countries have passed laws requiring industrial companies producing food and drinks to coordinate their advertising campaigns with the relevant authorities. For example, Great Britain and Northern Ireland have banned advertising products with high sugar, salt, and fat content on television during children's programs, which has become the beginning of the introduction of stricter restrictions for food and drink companies around the world.

However, some experts note that while watching family television programs that are categorized as adult and not included in the list of restrictions, children may be exposed to advertising of unhealthy products.

In the UK, Malcolm Clarke, coordinator of an initiative group that advocates for children against advertising of unhealthy food and drinks, noted that with the increase in information resources, manufacturing companies have new opportunities to promote their products. As a result, all the efforts of parents aimed at forming healthy eating habits in their children are reduced to zero, since in magazines, supermarkets, cinemas and even at school, the child is constantly confronted with advertising of unhealthy foods and drinks.

The World Health Organization calls on governments of all countries to influence the advertising of harmful products by establishing strict restrictions for manufacturing companies.

This provision is one of the main ones in the large-scale WHO action plan for the prevention of non-communicable diseases. According to this provision, WHO recommends influencing advertising and other methods of product promotion by manufacturing companies at the legislative level.

For several years, the WHO has been collecting data on how beverage and food advertising affects the younger generation, and as a result, a special network led by Norway was created, which is designed to reduce the pressure of advertising on the younger generation.

Future plans for the countries in this network include promoting the development of more effective and comprehensive policies, which requires that each government establish certain criteria, in particular for products whose advertising should be restricted.