Marketing Food to Children: the Global Regulatory Environment

Excerpts from the Summary follow:

Responding to concerns over the threat of an epidemic of diet-related non communicable diseases (NCDs), such as heart diseases, certain types of cancer, diabetes and obesity, the World Health Organization (WHO) has prepared a draft global strategy on diet, physical activity and health, that will be considered by Member States in May 2004. As part of the strategy development process, WHO has been examining a range of interventions that have the potential to play a role in tackling the globally rising rates of NCDs. In this respect, the regulation of the marketing of food, especially to children, has emerged as one area necessitating further attention. In an attempt to broach this issue in more depth, WHO commissioned the present review of the regulatory environment that surrounds the marketing of food (including non-alcoholic beverages) to children.

Although formal definitions of "marketing" are very broad, for the purposes of this review the term was used to refer only to those processes that are very visible to the consumer, namely: advertising and promotion. Six marketing techniques widely used by companies to promote food to children were singled out: television advertising, in-school marketing, sponsorship, product placement, Internet marketing and sales promotions.

Information about regulations governing each of these six marketing practices was obtained by conducting a thorough search of a wide range of information resources, including web sites of government ministries and industry organizations, legal databases, published books and papers, and governmental and nongovernmental reports. The data so obtained was then cross-checked against alternative sources, a process which involved personal contact with marketing experts worldwide. In all, the search process yielded verified information about marketing regulations in a set of 73 countries from all world regions...

Of the six techniques, television advertising is perhaps the most popular means of promoting food and beverage products worldwide and consequently has been the subject of more debate, in terms of its effects on children, than any other marketing practice. It is also the most widely regulated; 85% of the73 countries surveyed had some form of regulation on television advertising to children and almost half (44%) had specific restrictions on the timing and content of television advertisements directed at children. Two countries and one province have banned television advertising to children. The effect of such bans on children's diets is, however, difficult to evaluate; existing bans tend to be undermined by cross-border advertising (i.e. advertising that originates from another country) and other marketing techniques, factors which complicate evaluation. Twenty-two countries have some form of regulatory or self-regulatory clause on food advertising, but the degree of implementation of these clauses and their effect on children's diets has likewise not been evaluated.

Countries differ in their approach to the regulation of television advertising. Some rely solely on statutory regulations (i.e. those enshrined in laws or statutes, or rules designed to fill in the details of the broad concepts mandated by legislation), others preferring self-regulation (i.e. regulations put in place by a self-regulatory system whereby industry actively participates in, and is responsible for, its own regulation). In many cases, both forms of regulation coexist. The principle underlying many regulations is that advertising should not be deceitful or misleading. Most national regulations recognize children as a special group in need of special consideration and stipulate that advertising should not be harmful or exploitative of their credulity.

The marketing of food products to children in the school environment, be it in the form of direct advertising (e.g. signage), indirect advertising (e.g. sponsorship of educational materials) or product sales, is second only to television advertising in terms of the amount of controversy that it has attracted in recent years. Indeed, attempts to regulate sales of high-fat snacks and carbonated soft drinks in schools in the United States of America has become something of a cause célèbre amongst anti-obesity advocates and lawmakers. Although the practice is growing almost everywhere, many countries do not have specific regulations on in-school marketing; 33% of the countries surveyed were identified as having any form of regulation of this type and only a handful of countries place any restrictions on the sales of selected food products in schools. There are, however, signs that attitudes are changing, with national governments and the food industry taking a more proactive stance in developing new approaches to the regulation of product sales in schools.

Regulation of non-traditional forms of marketing, including Internet marketing, sponsorship, product placement and sales promotions can be described as patchy with regard to children. Although regulations on sponsorship and sales promotions are fairly common, very few countries have regulations on these forms of marketing that are specific to children and/or food. Partly because of the embedded nature of product placement, regulations on this form of marketing are especially open to the vagaries of interpretation. Children have been identified as an ideal target group for Internet-based advertisers, but as marketing on the Internet is relatively new, its regulation is still at the developmental stage in most countries. The main difficulty here lies in the fact that although many existing regulations in theory also apply to online advertising, in practice it is not always feasible to transfer the existing rules to Internet marketing owing to the complex and interactive nature of the technologies involved. Sponsorship and sales promotions are widely used techniques used to market food to children, but seldom do regulations account for their potential effects on children's eating patterns.

The review concludes that many countries have in place a range of regulations applicable to the marketing of food to children. But there are also gaps and variations in the existing global regulatory environment. Importantly, existing regulations do not consider food as a special category from the viewpoint of public health; regulations aim to guide the content and form of promotions, not to minimize their ability to encourage consumption of certain foods. Still, the regulatory environment is evolving; new regulations are continually being proposed and developed, industry is making new efforts, and consumer and public health groups are making new demands. These ongoing efforts tend, however, to focus on television advertising and in-school product marketing in the developed world, and less so on non-traditional forms of marketing and the growing use of promotional activities in developing countries. Mechanisms for implementation and enforcement of regulations, which may involve a complaints system, penalties for non-compliance and/or most stringent of all, systems for pre-approval of advertisements, vary considerably between countries...

Some consensus is emerging that the issue of food marketing to children needs to be addressed by all stakeholders. More objective research on the effects of marketing regulations on dietary patterns is warranted. Progress could be achieved by ensuring that health is at the centre of further policy development concerning the marketing of food to children.