Nursery World - Health & Well-Being

What’s being done to tackle junk food advertising and its adverse effects on children’s health, asks Meredith Jones Russell

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The promotion of junk food to young people is on the Government’s hitlist, with the second Childhood Obesity Plan, in 2018, including proposals to introduce new TV and online advertising restrictions and to prevent shops displaying unhealthy food at checkouts.

Mimi Tatlow-Golden, lecturer in developmental psychology and childhood at the Open University, says the role of advertising in increasing children’s awareness of junk food cannot be underestimated.

‘My research has shown that levels of brand awareness among children between the ages of three and five grow really quickly,’ she says. ‘Compared with their knowledge of what we think of as healthy brands, their knowledge of junk food brands is very pronounced even at three. There is also a lot of evidence that at all ages, children and young people will eat more after being exposed to junk food content.’

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