Reducing children’s exposure to food marketing is an important obesity prevention strategy. This narrative review describes current statutory regulations that restrict food marketing; reviews available evidence on the effects of these regulations; and compares policy design elements in Chile and the United Kingdom. Currently, 16 countries have statutory regulations on unhealthy food marketing to children. Restrictions on television advertising, primarily during children’s programming, are most common. Schools are also a common setting for restrictions. Regulations on media such as cinema, mobile phone applications, print, packaging, and the internet are uncommon. Eleven evaluations of policies in 4 jurisdictions found small or no policy-related reductions in unhealthy food advertising, in part because marketing shifted to other programs or venues; however, not all policies have been evaluated. Compared with the United Kingdom, Chile restricts marketing on more products, across a wider range of media, using more marketing techniques. Future research should examine which elements of food marketing policy design are most effective at reducing children’s exposure to unhealthy food marketing.

Food marketing has been identified as a contributing factor in childhood obesity, prompting global health organizations to recommend restrictions on unhealthy food marketing to children. Chile has responded to this recommendation with a restriction on child-directed marketing for products that exceed certain regulation-defined thresholds in sugars, saturated fats, sodium, or calories. Child-directed strategies are allowed for products that do not exceed these thresholds. To evaluate changes in marketing due to this restriction, we examined differences in the use of child-directed strategies on breakfast cereal packages that exceeded the defined thresholds vs. those that did not exceed the thresholds before (n = 168) and after (n = 153) the restriction was implemented. Photographs of cereal packages were taken from top supermarket chains in Santiago. Photographed cereals were classified as “high-in” if they exceeded any nutrient threshold described in the regulation. We found that the percentage of all cereal packages using child-directed strategies before implementation (36%) was significantly lower after implementation (21%), p < 0.05. This overall decrease is due to the decrease we found in the percentage of “high-in” cereals using child-directed strategies after implementation (43% before implementation, 15% after implementation), p < 0.05. In contrast, a greater percentage of packages that did not qualify as “high-in” used child-directed strategies after implementation (30%) compared with before implementation (8%), p < 0.05. The results suggest that the Chilean food marketing regulation can be effective at reducing the use of child-directed marketing for unhealthy food products.

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FOP marketing on beverages varied according to the nutritional quality of the product, with heavier use of health-oriented and child-directed strategies in less healthy products. Marketing activities warrant continued observation to evaluate how industry responds to new marketing restrictions as these restrictions are evaluated in the light of existing taxes and other regulatory efforts to improve diets and reduce obesity-related disease.

Background South Africa was the first sub-Saharan African country to implement a sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) tax called the Health Promotion Levy (HPL) in April 2018. Given news media can increase public awareness and sway opinions, this study analyzed how the media represented the HPL, including expressions of support or challenge, topics associated with the levy, and stakeholder views of the HPL. Methods We performed a quantitative content analysis of online South African news articles related to the HPL published between January 1, 2017 and June 30, 2019. We coded the presence or absence of mentions related to health and economic effects of the HPL and HPL support or opposition. Prevalence of these mentions, overall and by source (industry, government, academics, other), were analyzed with Pearson χ2 and post-hoc Fisher exact tests. Results Across all articles, 81% mentioned health, and 65% mentioned economics topics. 54% of articles expressed support, 26% opposition, and 20% a balanced view of the HPL. All sources except industry expressed majority support for the HPL. Health reasons were the most common justifications for support, and economic harms were the most common justifications for opposition. Statements that sugar intake is not related to obesity, the HPL will not reduce SSB intake, and the HPL will cause industry or economic harm were all disproportionately high in industry sources (92, 80, and 81% vs 25% prevalence in total sample) (p < 0.001). Statements that sugar intake is related to obesity and non-communicable diseases were disproportionately high in both government (46 and 54% vs 31% prevalence in total sample) (p < 0.001) and academics (33 and 38% vs 25% prevalence in total sample) (p < 0.05). Statements that the HPL will improve health and the HPL will reduce health care costs were disproportionately high in government (47% vs 31% prevalence in total sample) (p < 0.001) and academics (44% vs 25% prevalence in total sample) (p < 0.05), respectively. Conclusions Industry expressed no support for the HPL, whereas academics, government, and other sources mainly expressed support. Future studies would be improved by linking news media exposure to SSB intake data to better understand the effects news media may have on individual behavior change.