European children exposed to less food advertising on TV

Independent data from Accenture Media Management shows that the world’s biggest food brands have significantly changed the way they advertise products to children on TV since 2005 in the EU.

According to the data, many brands have either voluntarily pulled food advertisements or are only advertising products that meet strict nutrition criteria during children’s programming. This means that children today are being exposed to considerably less publicity for all food products across all TV programming, the researchers found.

On average, children across the EU today are exposed to 31% fewer advertisements for EU pledge products on TV across all programming. They see 47% fewer ads for products that do not meet the nutrition criteria and 82% fewer for products not meeting the criteria in and around children’s programmes.

Under an EU pledge, 20 companies which represent over 80% of food publicity spending in the EU have committed to change the products they advertise to children under the age of twelve.

The EU pledge was facilitated and endorsed by the World Federation of Advertisers and is a joint industry commitment to the "EU Platform for Action on Diet, Physical Activity and Health," which was set up by the European Commission in 2005.

The commitments also extend to schools, children’s print publications, online advertising and company-owned websites.