Strengthening Global Legislative Actions to Protect Children from the Harmful Impacts of Unhealthy Food and Non-alcoholic Beverage Marketing

Childhood overweight and obesity have reached unacceptable levels globally, with 39 million children under 5 affected in 2020 and over 340 million children and adolescents aged 5–19 affected in 2016. Diets high in saturated fats, trans fats, free sugars, and salt are key drivers, and exposure to unhealthy food and beverage marketing is ubiquitous. This exposure shapes social norms and preferences, increases consumption of unhealthy products across the life course, and contributes to adverse outcomes including excess weight gain, cognitive impairments, reduced quality of life, and non-communicable diseases. UN agencies, including WHO and the UN Human Rights system, have called on Member States to restrict such marketing to protect children. While some governments have introduced regulations, few laws adequately protect all children from all unhealthy food and beverage marketing. The WHO has stated that reducing both exposure to, and the power of, unhealthy food and beverage marketing to children should be the ultimate policy goal, and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Article 24) has been interpreted to require government action to restrict children’s exposure to such marketing. Designing robust, enforceable legislation that meets these objectives, anticipates loopholes, and withstands potential legal challenges is technically complex but essential. This paper draws on global policies and academic literature to identify why and how legislative approaches can be strengthened. It examines three technical areas: (i) comprehensively capturing children’s exposure (age definition, marketing types/techniques/channels, brand marketing, tailored designs across media/settings, food or nutrient classification systems); (ii) balancing comprehensive scope with practical, stepwise implementation; and (iii) strengthening monitoring and enforcement.

The paper is a narrative policy and legal analysis drawing on existing global food marketing policies and the academic literature. The authors reviewed current statutory and regulatory approaches worldwide and identified key technical design issues that limit effectiveness. Three focal areas guided the analysis: (1) comprehensively capturing exposure to unhealthy food and non-alcoholic beverage marketing (including defining the protected age group, coverage of media/settings/techniques, treatment of brand marketing, tailoring legal designs to specific media/settings, and the choice and strength of food/nutrient classification systems); (2) balancing comprehensive legislative scope with feasible, staged implementation via enabling laws and subsequent regulations; and (3) strengthening monitoring systems and enforcement provisions, including complaint mechanisms, proactive auditing, and penalties. The paper synthesizes evaluations and case studies (e.g., Chile, UK, Canada, South Korea, Ireland, Quebec) to draw practical lessons for legislative design and implementation.

- Definitions and scope - Children should be defined as persons under 18 years, consistent with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child; adolescents are demonstrably vulnerable to marketing influences and possess purchasing power. - Policies limited to “child-directed/targeted/appealing” marketing or tied to audience share thresholds fail to capture the bulk of exposure in mixed-audience media and settings and are difficult to implement and enforce. - Coverage across media, settings, and techniques - Effective legislation must cover all media (broadcast, online/social, cinema, radio, print), settings (schools, children’s services, playgrounds, sports and event venues, public spaces/transport, retail/point-of-sale, outdoor/billboards), and techniques (advertising, promotion, sponsorship, packaging, placement, price promotions) to avoid displacement of marketing activities. - Brand marketing - Excluding master brand advertising creates a loophole; brand cues increase reward pathways and preferences even without product depictions. A brand classification approach (e.g., assessing top-selling items against a nutrient profile and restricting brands primarily associated with non-permitted products) can close this gap. - Tailored legislative design - Use a mix of time-based (e.g., broadcast watersheds), setting-based (whole-of-setting bans where children are commonly present), media-based (e.g., comprehensive online restrictions), and content-based (as a backstop) rules tailored to the medium/setting/technique. - Evidence on effectiveness and design adaptations - Chile’s initial child-targeted TV approach reduced exposure but did not eliminate it; estimated reductions were 35% for preschoolers and 52% for adolescents, with persistent exposure outside child-targeted programming and interpretive challenges. Chile subsequently adopted a 6 am–10 pm ban for unhealthy food ads on TV to address these gaps. - The UK moved from audience-share thresholds toward a 6 am–9 pm watershed for HFSS products (implementation pending), acknowledging limitations of earlier rules. - Nutrient/food classification systems - Strong, evidence-based classification (e.g., WHO regional nutrient profile models or NOVA) aligned with national dietary guidelines is critical; common weaknesses include exempting categories (e.g., some dairy) without strong justification and not restricting non-nutritive sweetener beverages despite emerging evidence and WHO model recommendations. - Implementation strategy - Comprehensive laws are most effective (lesson from tobacco control) but can be operationalized via an enabling framework law with time-bound regulations phased across media/settings to maintain momentum and reduce political and capacity barriers. - Monitoring and enforcement - Reliance solely on public complaints is insufficient; independent, transparent systems plus proactive government auditing are needed. - Penalties should be timely and of sufficient magnitude to deter violations (e.g., beyond modest fines such as South Korea’s up to 10 million won ≈ USD 10,000). Options include campaign withdrawal/modification across media, temporary channel bans, pre-clearance requirements, naming-and-shaming, and, where enabled, civil/criminal liability for responsible officers. Responsibility should extend across the marketing chain (initiators, producers, publishers, influencers, recipients/facilitators such as sponsored clubs). - Legal defensibility - Robust evidence, non-discriminatory classifications, and clear objectives strengthen resilience against domestic and international legal/trade challenges.

The paper addresses the central challenge of protecting children from the harmful impacts of unhealthy food and non-alcoholic beverage marketing by identifying why existing laws fall short and proposing concrete legal design enhancements. By redefining the protected group up to age 18 and moving beyond narrow “child-directed” concepts to encompass all marketing to which children are exposed, the recommendations align legal scope with real-world exposure patterns, especially in mixed-audience media and environments. Tailoring regulatory tools—time-based restrictions for linear media, setting-based bans where children are commonly present, media-wide restrictions for complex online ecosystems, and content-based rules as a backstop—improves enforceability and coverage, reducing loopholes and displacement of marketing. Incorporating brand advertising within scope recognizes the persuasive power of brand cues and prevents substitution from product-specific to brand-level promotion. Strengthened, evidence-based nutrient/food classification systems aligned with WHO models and national dietary guidance ensure that restrictions target products most associated with harm in a defensible, non-discriminatory manner. The strategy of an enabling law with time-bound, phased regulations balances the need for comprehensive protection with practical constraints on capacity and political feasibility, while maintaining policy momentum and adaptability as marketing tactics evolve. Finally, robust monitoring and enforcement—combining independent complaint systems, proactive auditing, and meaningful, timely penalties applied across the marketing chain—are essential to achieve reductions in exposure and power of marketing and to meet public health and child rights obligations.

An effective legislative system to protect children from unhealthy food and non-alcoholic beverage marketing should: define children as under 18 years; cover the full range of marketing to which children are exposed across media, settings, and techniques; employ a tailored mix of time-, setting-, media-, and content-based restrictions rather than relying solely on “child-directed” criteria; and implement an evidence-based classification system to determine which products and brands are permitted to be marketed. Governments may operationalize a comprehensive approach in stages via an enabling law with clear, time-bound implementation to fit local political and resource constraints while minimizing regulatory gaps. Equally important are efficient, well-resourced monitoring mechanisms and deterrent enforcement measures calibrated to the food and beverage industry, to ensure laws achieve their intended objectives.