Policy update on restricting food advertising primarily directed at children: Policy background

On this page

• Introduction
• Mandatory restrictions
• Self-regulation
• Developments in Canada
• Regulatory plan

Introduction

The World Health Organization (WHO) set of recommendations on the marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to children, endorsed at the 63^rd World Health Assembly in 2010, called for Member States to introduce policies that reduce the impact of advertising to children of foods high in sodium, sugars or saturated fat^{Footnote 1}. To date, implementation of these recommendations has been limited. Member States have faced challenges in fully implementing these recommendations and none have eliminated children's exposure to advertising for foods that contribute to unhealthy diets^{Footnote 2}.

The research to date on the impacts of existing food advertising restrictions has reported mainly positive, but mixed results, largely due to inconsistency in study types and the mix of mandatory and voluntary policies in effect. A recent systematic review of existing policies found evidence that they may result in reduced purchases of foods that contribute to an unhealthy diet^{Footnote 3}.

Mandatory policies were more likely to be effective when they:

• protected children of all ages
• restricted food advertising on television
• used a nutrient profile model to classify foods

Nutrient profile models classify foods based on the types and amounts of nutrients they contain. Other evaluation studies have found that food advertising restrictions are associated with:

1. decreases in young children's exposure to advertising of foods high in nutrients of concern^{Footnote 4}
2. decreases in ad expenditures for these types of foods^{Footnote 5Footnote 6}
3. decreases in use of characters or celebrities in food advertising^{Footnote 7}
4. lower fast-food consumption^{Footnote 8}

Internationally, there is a diversity of mandatory and voluntary restrictions on food advertising to children^{Footnote 9}. These advertising restrictions differ in terms of the age of children covered, their scope and approach, as well as the nutrient criteria used to identify foods subject to advertising restriction.

Mandatory restrictions

In North America, Quebec and Mexico are the only jurisdictions with mandatory restrictions on food advertising to children. Self-regulatory codes and initiatives cover the remainder of the continent.

Quebec (1980): The Consumer Protection Act prohibits commercial advertising directed at children under the age of 13. The ban applies to the advertising of all goods and services, including food.

One study found that television food advertisements were less likely to target children in Quebec (compared to Ontario)^{Footnote 10}. In addition, French language television in Quebec had a lower proportion of advertised foods classified as high in sodium, sugars or fat^{Footnote 11}.

Mexico (2014): Following several years of self-regulation, Mexico introduced restrictions on food advertising directed at children under the age of 13 on television and in cinemas. Food category-specific thresholds were set for energy, sodium, saturated fat and total sugars. Restrictions were applied to programs with more than 35% child audience at specific times of the day. Later, in 2020, Mexico prohibited the use of child-appealing packaging and labelling on foods with front of package labels (signalling excess calories, salt, free sugars, and saturated or trans fats).

Elsewhere, a small, but growing number of countries have enacted mandatory restrictions on food advertising to children. Countries in South America and Europe have been at the forefront. The following list provides examples of jurisdictions with mandatory restrictions on food advertising to children.

Chile (2016) phased in a regulatory approach that prohibited advertising targeted at children under the age of 14 of any food that is high in calories, saturated fats, sugars or sodium. The regulation covers many types of media and settings such as television, digital, packaging and schools. A 20% child audience threshold is used to determine where the restriction applies on television and websites. An evaluation study found that children's exposure to "high-in" food advertising on television decreased by an average of 44% for pre-schoolers and 58% for adolescents^{Footnote 12}.

Argentina (2022) prohibits advertising directed to children and adolescents of food products that have a front of package warning label (signalling excess calories, fat, saturated fat, sugar or sodium)^{Footnote 13}.

The United Kingdom (UK) (2022) passed legislation that will enable new food advertising restrictions on television between 5:30 am and 9 pm, and a total ban of all paid-for ads online as of October 2025. This builds on existing co-regulation of advertising directed at children under the age of 16 in broadcast media, and self-regulation in non-broadcast media. The UK nutrient profiling model assigns a score to foods based on their calorie, saturated fat, sugar, sodium, fruit, vegetable, nut, fibre and protein content.

Portugal (2019) prohibits advertising directed to children and adolescents under the age of 16 of foods high in energy, salt, sugars or saturated fatty acids on television, digital media, radio, cinemas, print media, schools and playgrounds.

Spain (2021) announced that it is developing new mandatory restrictions after concluding that industry self-regulation had been ineffective. The scope of restriction would include advertising on television, radio, cinema screens, social media networks, websites and apps directed at children under the age of 16. Spain has proposed to use the WHO-Europe nutrient profile model, which establishes category-specific limits for total fat, saturated fat, total sugars, added sugars, non-sugar sweeteners, sodium and calories.

Self-regulation

Many countries, including the USA and Australia, continue to rely on industry-led self-regulation of food advertising to children.

In Canada, industry introduced the Children's Advertising Initiative (CAI) in 2007. This is a voluntary initiative restricting advertising of certain foods to children. Despite its intent, Canadian research has demonstrated that this initiative leaves children significantly exposed to food advertising^{Footnote 14Footnote 15Footnote 16}.

In June 2021, 4 industry associations launched a new self-regulatory food advertising code. This code will replace the CAI, with implementation planned by summer 2023^{Footnote 17}.

Self-regulatory approaches have often been found to be ineffective in meaningfully reducing children's exposure to food advertisements^{Footnote 18Footnote 19Footnote 20Footnote 21Footnote 22}.

Developments in Canada

In October 2016, the Minister of Health launched the Healthy Eating Strategy to help improve the food environment. Restricting food advertising to children is an important component of this Strategy and has been a Minister of Health mandate commitment since 2015.

Between 2016 and 2019, Health Canada consulted extensively on a policy proposal to restrict food advertising to children in various settings and media. Bill S-228 (an Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children)) was tabled in the Senate in 2016 but did not come to a final vote before the end of the 42nd parliamentary session.

Since then, Health Canada has undertaken a range of activities, including implementing a comprehensive monitoring strategy, and reviewing new initiatives, evidence and stakeholder feedback, to determine an appropriate approach to help protect the health of children and deliver on the mandate commitment to support restrictions on the commercial marketing of food and beverages to children.

Private Members' Bill C-252 was introduced in the House of Commons in February 2022 and is currently proceeding through Parliament. As introduced, the Bill proposes to amend the Food and Drugs Act to prohibit the advertising of foods and beverages that contribute to excess sodium, sugars and/or saturated fat in children's diets in a manner that is primarily directed at persons who are under 13 years of age and provides supporting regulation-making authorities.

Regulatory plan

The proposed restrictions could be implemented under existing regulatory authorities under the Food and Drugs Act, or new authorities if Bill C-252 receives Royal Assent.

Health Canada's comprehensive M2K surveillance monitoring

Monitoring food advertising to children in Canada is an important part of Health Canada's role in developing evidence-informed nutrition policy. The Department is monitoring the media and settings where children spend the most time and are more likely to be exposed to food advertising. In addition, Health Canada is also monitoring the techniques that are most prominently used in advertising primarily directed at children. The Department will construct a baseline of Canadian data that can be used to measure changes over time, so that we can better understand the state of food advertising to children in Canada. The results of this monitoring will be publicly available in the form of:

• reports
• web pages
• fact sheets
• infographics
• social media posts