The new World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines to protect children from food marketing (“Policies to protect children from the harmful impact of food marketing”) recommend its member countries to implement appropriate policies to curb promotional messages of food and drinks with high saturated fat, free sugars and salt content.
Annamaria Staiano, president of the Italian Society of Paediatrics, commented: “We are extremely delighted with this document and we hope that the Italian government will soon implement it, starting with banning or limiting junk food advertising in television programmes addressed to children and on digital media”.
Although the approval of the WHO recommendation on commercialising food and non-alcoholic beverages to children dates back to 2010, minors still continue to be bombarded by the promotion of food whose consumption is associated with overweight, obesity and negative health effects. The WHO recommendation could be a starting point for the promotion of even more targeted and effective campaigns aimed at achieving greater visibility for the organic industry and, consequently, greater returns in terms of sales.
