The new Guidelines issued by the World Health Organization, accepted and supported by the Italian Society of Pediatrics, recommend member countries to protect minors from advertising of foods and drinks harmful to their health
That there is an increase in overweight and obesity in children is a worldwide trend that has been consolidated for several years. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), in just over thirty years, the prevalence of overweight or obese children and adolescents aged between 5 and 19 years has increased more than four times, from 4% to 18 % globally. Among the initiatives in place to combat obesity, WHO has just published a document which contains a series of recommendations already promoted in 2010 on the promotion of food and drink intended for children and adolescents.
The document shows the need to defend minors from the harmful effects of junk food advertising (especially those with a high content of saturated fatty acids, trans fatty acids, sugars and salt) which, thanks also to the promotion on TV and online spaces, are increasingly chosen by children and teenagers and usually present in the homes and meeting spaces of the youngest.
The appeal of the Italian Society of Pediatrics
We warmly welcomed the new WHO guidelines to protect children and adolescents from the harmful impacts of harmful food and drink advertising – comments Annamaria Staiano, President of the Italian Society of Pediatrics.
We are witnessing a real media bombardment for minors who, thanks to certain advertisements, are subjected to the high risk of adopting incorrect lifestyles and inadequate diets. We hope that policies will be put in place to limit the presence of advertisements for so-called “junk food or drink” in programs intended for minors. This is particularly relevant because children, increasingly precociously, are continuously exposed to tablets, mobile phones and TVs and therefore to an ever-increasing amount of advertising messages and this has a devastating impact on the choices they make and will make, and which concern many often the food field.
In the latest report by OKkio alla SALUTE – the national surveillance system linked to the Ministry of Health created to monitor the evolution of childhood obesity every three years – in 2019 overweight children were 20.4% and obese 9% ,4% (the new report on 2022 data is being processed).
The latest data from OKkio alla SALUTE gave us a slightly better picture than in the past, but we are still in fourth place in Europe in terms of childhood obesity and overweight and if we look at obesity alone we are in third place, so the data is not comforting , says Staiano. It’s not just nutrition that is accused, but the lifestyle of the child and the family.
Physical activity and the abuse of digital products also have an impact. It is necessary to work not only on the single child but on the obesogenic environment around the child, above all on the environments that he habitually frequents, including school. To improve the situation, a change of pace is fundamental, and for this reason new restrictive policies in the field of advertising marketing are important. The institutions must take measures so that all the environments that offer stimuli and that have an impact on people’s lives and choices, especially if they are minors, are carefully monitored, concludes Staiano.
July 8, 2023 (change July 8, 2023 | 09:15 am)
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