Hawkes 2007 Regulating Food Marketing

 GOVERNMENT, POLITICS, AND LAW 

Regulating and Litigating in the Public Interest

Regulating Food Marketing to Young People Worldwide: Trends and Policy Drivers

| Corinna Hawkes, PhD

The pressure to regulate the marketing of high-energy, nutrient-poor foods to young people has been mounting in light of concern about rising worldwide levels of overweight and obesity. In 2004, the World Health Organization called on governments, industry, and civil society to act to reduce unhealthy marketing messages. Since then, important changes have taken place in the global regulatory environment regarding the marketing of food to young people. Industry has developed self-regulatory approaches, civil society has campaigned for statutory restrictions, and governments have dealt with a range of regulatory proposals. Still, there have been few new regulations that restrict food marketing to young people. Despite calls for evidencebased policy, new regulatory developments appear to have been driven less by evidence than by ethics. (Am J Public Health. 2007;97:1962–1973. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2006.101162) United States and worldwide, the marketing of high-energy, nutrient-poor foods and beverages has become an issue that has generated increasing amounts of public debate. In the United States, the prevalence of overweight and obesity among girls increased from 13.8% to 16.0% between 1999–2000 and 2003–2004 and, among boys, from 14.0% to 18.2%.1 Similar trends have been experienced in Europe and are emerging in the developing world; 10% of children worldwide are now estimated to be overweight or obese.2 Implicated in the trend is a “nutrition transition” to diets high in energy-dense foods, accompanied by lower physical activity.3 Regulation of the marketing of these high-energy, nutrient-poor foods is one of the policy measures most frequently proposed to address overweight and obesity in young people. It is also one of the most controversial. In 2004, the World Health Organization...