Cancer Council NSW
Food companies bombard children with marketing for unhealthy food; and it influences what food they like, pester for, and eat. But how do we decide what is an ‘unhealthy food’?
Our study looked at outdoor food advertisements and compared six systems that could be used to define ‘unhealthy food’. We found Australia already has an easy to use system and it outperforms the others most of the time.
Recommendations to address high childhood obesity rates include regulation on unhealthy food marketing to children. Reducing children’s exposure to advertising of unhealthy food and drinks is a focus area in the recently developed National Preventive Health and National Obesity Strategies.