Statutory restrictions on unhealthy food marketing to children: the debate continues.

The proposition for restricting marketing of unhealthy foods to children is currently being debated in many countries around the world. As the prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity increases globally, food marketing, which predominantly promotes unhealthy products, has come under increasing scrutiny for its contribution to an obesogenic environment for children. Consequently, public health groups are increasingly calling on governments to restrict the marketing of unhealthy foods to children in order to reduce children’s exposure and the food industry’s influence on their dietary choices. To reduce the prevalence of childhood obesity at the population level, public health approaches, such as policy, fiscal and legislative measures, offer more powerful and effective tools than behavioural and clinical strategies. Tobacco control provides a good example of a public health strategy being more effective than individual approaches at reducing smoking rates. While obesity is not identical to smoking, it does share similarities, by way of big business promoting unhealthy products to consumers. Calls for statutory restrictions to the marketing of unhealthy foods to children represent a structuralist discourse on health, whereby interventions target the markets that promote unhealthy products. This contrasts with the dominant individualist discourse, which places responsibility for change on the consumer – to exercise self-restraint and make the ‘right’ food choices in an environment that promotes consumption of energy-dense foods. The individualist discourse is consistent with neoliberal ideologies that nurture the operations of markets and favour individual responsibility for choices over government interventions to create supportive environments for healthy choices.