Building Healthier Societies by Restricting Pervasive Food Marketing to Children

The WHO urges European nations to adopt comprehensive laws to protect children from pervasive unhealthy food marketing, particularly in digital spaces, which significantly influences dietary habits and health outcomes. Strong enforcement and regional cooperation are recommended to ensure children’s rights and public health are prioritized over commercial interests.

The World Health Organization’s European Regional Office has issued a critical report addressing the pervasive issue of unhealthy food marketing targeted at children, emphasizing the need for member states to adopt strong legislative measures to curb these practices. This report reveals that the current reliance on voluntary industry self-regulation has proven ineffective, as companies continue to exploit multiple channels to influence children’s food choices, often through aggressive, data-driven marketing of foods high in salt, sugar, and fat. Studies underscore the impact of such marketing on children’s dietary norms and health outcomes, linking these advertisements to increased consumption of unhealthy foods, greater caloric intake, and a rise in diet-related conditions like obesity and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). This dietary impact is particularly problematic given children’s inherent susceptibility to persuasive content, which is not only directed at them explicitly but is also subtly woven into broader media and environments they frequent. WHO’s report underscores the importance of protecting children’s right to health, as outlined in international agreements like the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, by implementing comprehensive, government-led legal restrictions on unhealthy food marketing.

The Digital Landscape: A New Frontier for Marketing Tactics

The report highlights a concerning trend: while some European countries have started implementing child-centered marketing regulations, these measures are often limited to specific settings, such as schools, or to particular media types like television, leaving significant gaps in the protections afforded to children. For instance, food advertisements are heavily embedded in digital environments where children spend considerable time, making online marketing particularly influential and problematic. The report reveals that children, especially adolescents, are frequently targeted through social media platforms and digital games that utilize data to deliver highly personalized ads for unhealthy food products. This immersive digital experience, reinforced by peer influence and frequent engagement with influencers and kid-targeted content, fosters a strong association between these unhealthy products and desirable social norms, increasing the risk of unhealthy eating behaviors and contributing to long-term health risks. WHO’s findings illustrate that without decisive legislative action, the advertising industry will continue to shift its focus to unregulated spaces and more sophisticated strategies, eroding the gains from existing partial restrictions.

Comprehensive Laws as the Path Forward

Among the report's recommendations, WHO calls for a blanket ban on all unhealthy food advertising across digital media, arguing that this approach not only prevents companies from exploiting evolving technologies but also simplifies compliance and enforcement. Relying on self-regulatory industry codes is inadequate, as research has shown these voluntary efforts consistently fall short of reducing children's exposure to harmful food advertising. To counteract this, WHO proposes a comprehensive legal framework that applies restrictions across all marketing channels, including broadcast, online, outdoor, and retail spaces. Member states are encouraged to adopt whole-of-system approaches to food marketing controls, embedding these restrictions within broader public health initiatives that promote healthier eating environments, such as front-of-package nutrition labeling, fiscal policies like sugar taxes, and measures that increase access to nutritious foods in schools and public spaces. Countries like Portugal and the United Kingdom have set precedents by enacting stricter advertising regulations, with the UK banning unhealthy food advertisements during peak children’s viewing hours and Portugal implementing child-targeted bans in settings like playgrounds and cinemas. However, WHO notes that these regulations must evolve to encompass the full range of digital marketing tactics, as children’s media consumption is increasingly shifting online.

Protecting Children’s Rights Through Rigorous Enforcement

The report emphasizes that protecting children from unhealthy food marketing is as much a matter of human rights as it is of public health. It urges member states to adopt child-centric, legally binding measures that include explicit penalties for noncompliance, creating a deterrent effect to ensure adherence. WHO also highlights the role of rigorous monitoring and evaluation to assess the impact of these policies, recommending that countries establish regular reporting and compliance checks to track progress. In this regard, it encourages governments to utilize tools like the WHO CLICK tool to map children’s exposure to digital food advertising, providing a data-driven basis for intervention. Furthermore, by working together on a regional scale, European countries could establish a unified approach to combating cross-border advertising challenges, thereby strengthening individual nations’ enforcement capacities and helping mitigate the influence of transnational corporations that target children across borders.

A Roadmap to a Healthier Future

WHO also underscores the importance of designing regulations that encompass the broad scope of advertising types and techniques used by the food industry, from cartoon characters and celebrity endorsements to giveaways and brand-sponsored events. It urges that these laws cover all forms of media and settings frequented by children, noting that food marketing is often found not just on television and the internet, but also in retail environments, schools, and even public transportation. Research from countries like Norway, Belgium, and the United Kingdom illustrates how extensively unhealthy food marketing infiltrates children’s daily lives, appearing in diverse spaces and using various psychological tactics to influence preferences. To be effective, WHO contends, policies must be rooted in a child’s right to grow up in a healthy environment, free from manipulative marketing that undermines their well-being. The report leaves little doubt: if member states in the WHO European Region are to protect children’s health and foster healthier societies, they must adopt and enforce robust legal frameworks that systematically restrict harmful food marketing and ensure that public health prevails over industry profit.