WHO calls for protecting children from advertising harmful products

Today, advertising food and beverages refers to a fairly developed industry, and children and adolescents 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 the placement of brands is common, which makes it possible to maximize the impact on the consumer.

There was no exception to advertising of fatty and harmful food, for example, in Greece, 65% of commercials were associated with the promotion of foods high in sugar, fat, salt. As practice shows, children react very strongly to advertising, which is able to influence their taste preferences. Habits are laid in the early stages of the child's development, and today the real problem is the formation in children of the habit of using unhealthy foods, which in the future can lead to the development of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and other health problems.

The general director of the global organization for the protection of the rights of buyers, Amanda Long noted that manufacturers spend billions of dollars on advertising. All over the world, the younger generation faces bright and memorable advertising of high-calorie products, which have undergone a strong processing and contain a huge amount of fat, salt, sugar.

In a number of countries, the government is concerned about the current situation, in some countries laws have been passed, according to which industrial companies that produce food and drinks must coordinate promotional activities with the relevant authorities. For example, in Great Britain and Northern Ireland a ban on advertising on TV products with high sugar, salt, fat content during children's programs was introduced, which was the beginning for the introduction of more stringent restrictions for food and beverage companies around the world.

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

In the UK, the coordinator of the initiative group, which advocates children from advertising unhealthy food and beverages, Malcolm Clarke noted that with the increase in information tools, manufacturers have new opportunities to promote their products. In the end, all efforts of parents aimed at forming a healthy eating habits in a child are reduced to zero, since in magazines, supermarkets, in cinemas and even in school, a child constantly faces advertising harmful products and drinks.

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

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

For several years, WHO has collected data on how advertising of drinks and products affects the younger generation, as a result, a special network was created under the leadership of Norway, which is designed to reduce the pressure of advertising on the younger generation.

In the future plans of the countries participating in this network, to promote the development of a more efficient and comprehensive policy, for which it is required that the government of each country establish certain criteria, in particular for products whose advertising needs to be limited.