3 Top five things junk food marketers know about children

Beware the junk food marketer with their hashtags, games and sponsored tweets! Watch the following video which shows the Top 5 things junk food marketers know about your child [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] . 

An ongoing conversation is taking place about the kind of relationship young people have with digital media. Calls have been made for an international regime to address this by balancing children’s protection and participation online. Part of this would involve limiting the ability for those selling unhealthy items to target children with advertising online. In the UK, current advertising regulations aim to restrict targeting of children and young people with unhealthy advertising online. Yet it’s unclear how effective these are, as young people report still seeing many ads for fast food, fizzy drinks and other brands online – nearly half of young people aged 11-19 saw such ads online at least twice a week, and one in five saw them daily (Critchlow et al., 2020).

As digital media become ever more part of our lives, at all ages, it is essential we find ways to protect children and young people’s right to health, while at the same time protecting their right to use these media to avail of information and engage in civic life.