Industry self-regulation is failing to protect Australian children and adolescents from unhealthy food marketing

Australia is in the midst of a childhood obesity epidemic that presents a serious public health issue. More than a quarter of Australian children are overweight or obese – that’s more than a million children with an unhealthy weight!

This is not surprising when you look at how Australian children and adolescents are exposed to a huge amount of unhealthy food marketing every day. Food companies and fast food chains bombard kids with unhealthy food on television, in public spaces in public spaces, at the shops, while watching and playing sport, online, and sometimes even at school.

In the newly released report, Overbranded, Underprotected, the Obesity Policy Coalition (OPC) has exposed the food industry’s failure to limit children’s and adolescents exposure to junk food marketing, despite introducing self-regulated codes almost 10 years ago. Even with the codes, the Australian Government allows the food and advertising industries to set their own rules around marketing of unhealthy food to children and adolescents as companies find loopholes under the current codes leading to marketing of junk food to children and adolescents. This can include:

• Toy giveaways and competitions (Happy Meals, Kinder Surprise eggs);
• Cartoon promotions and mascots on packaging (Coco Pops Monkey, Disney characters);
• Sport sponsorship (McDonald’s sponsorship of Little Athletics);
• Junk food advertisements airing between the commercial breaks of TV shows popular with kids.

The report highlights the failures of the food industry’s self-regulated codes and identifies eight actions the Australian Government must implement to reduce children’s exposure to unhealthy food marketing to help stop the normalisation of junk food in a child’s diet.

By limiting children’s and adolescent’s exposure to unhealthy food marketing these actions aim to improve their diet and reduce their risk of weight gain and chronic disease.

This is an approach recommended by the World Health Organisation and is in place in other countries. It has the potential to work in Australia but needs to be implemented as part of a comprehensive approach by governments to improve diets and address weight.

Learn more at www.opc.org.au/overbrandedunderprotected or join the push on social media via #OverbrandedUnderprotected.

About the report
Overbranded, Underprotected outlines the systematic failures of the food industry’s self-regulated codes, and provides a list of recommendations for the Australian Government to reduce children’s exposure to unhealthy food marketing.

Overbranded, Underprotected: How industry self-regulation is failing to protect children from unhealthy food marketing is available at www.opc.org.au/overbrandedunderprotected.

About the Obesity Policy Coalition
The OPC is a partnership between Cancer Council Victoria, Diabetes Victoria and the Global Obesity Centre at Deakin University, a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention. The OPC advocates for evidence-based policy and regulatory change to address overweight, obesity and
unhealthy diets in Australia.