Reducing unhealthy food and beverage advertising to children: a framework for strengthening performance, transparency and enforcement

Food and beverage multinationals spend vast sums of money marketing unhealthy foods and drinks to children, using an integrated array of advertising techniques and media platforms. Countries have responded in different ways to such advertising, adopting voluntary codes and pledges, legislation and co-regulation (a combination of voluntary and mandatory approaches). We evaluated the quality of regulatory controls on unhealthy food and beverage marketing to children in five national and one sub-national jurisdiction, applying a public health law framework that identifies building blocks for effective, transparent and accountable regulation. Applying this framework to the core documents comprising each regulatory scheme, we identified recommendations for improving the design of regulatory controls. Our analysis supports the development of global norms governing unhealthy food and beverage advertising to children and assists public health advocates to hold governments, and the food and advertising industries to account for their actions in each of three regulatory domains: in the design of regulatory controls, the design of regulatory processes and enforcement of standards.