ALMOST all of the food products marketed to Filipino children do not meet global standards, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) has reported.
The UN agency said that of the 1,035 digital food advertisements that specifically target children, 99 percent promote products that are not up to World Health Organization (WHO) standards for marketing to children.
The massive ad campaign of the processed food industry contributed to the rising rate of obesity in school-age children in the country — 12.9 percent today, compared to 10.4 percent in 2019.
Unicef attributed the rise to more children consuming ultra-processed foods and sugary drinks, which are heavily marketed.
Ads hype up such products as fun, energizing, or even “healthy.” They become an easier choice not only for children but also for families who find healthier food more expensive or time-consuming to prepare.
The shift in preference is becoming increasingly visible in classrooms and communities.
In the Philippines, about 12.9 percent of school-age children and 12.5 percent of adolescents are obese.
Over several decades, obesity has become a global problem that, if unaddressed, could mean that by 2035, about 4 billion people — half of the world’s population — could be overweight or obese.
The WHO said many low- and middle-income countries face what it considers a “double burden of malnutrition.”
“While these countries continue to deal with the problems of infectious diseases and undernutrition, they are also experiencing a rapid upsurge in noncommunicable disease risk factors such as obesity and overweight,” it said.
It is common to find undernutrition and obesity co-existing within the same country, the same community and the same household.
The WHO now classifies obesity as “a chronic, relapsing disease arising from complex interactions between genetics, neurobiology, eating behaviors, access to healthy diet, market forces, and the broader environment.”
Ironically, the disease spreads as more countries enjoy greater food security, providing children a wider choice of unhealthy foods.
The result: poor nutrition that affects concentration, energy levels, and overall academic performance and raises the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease later in life, the agency said.
In 2022, more than 390 million youths aged 5–19 years were overweight, a 20-percent jump from 1990 figures.
Yet, overweight and obesity are largely preventable and manageable, according to the WHO.
Individual interventions include physical activity and limiting children’s screen time and consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and energy-dense foods.
On the national level, the WHO said, the food industry can play a key role in promoting healthy diets by cutting the fat, sugar and salt content of processed foods, and restricting marketing of health-neutral products aimed at children and teenagers.
Governments, meanwhile, can introduce policies that create “healthy food environments that make healthier food options available, accessible and desirable.”
In the Philippines, Unicef, the WHO and the National Nutrition Council (NNC) have teamed up to promote the passage of the proposed healthy food environment bill, which is designed to protect children from aggressive marketing tactics on foods or drinks high in sugar, salt, or unhealthy fats.
Kyungsun Kim, Unicef’s country representative, sees the bill as strengthening “food marketing safeguards for children where they live, learn and play, and making it easier for families to make healthier food choices.”
Once it becomes law, the proposed bill will not only reinforce restrictions on marketing to children but also provide the framework for classifying food based on its nutritional content.
It will require clear front-of-pack nutrition labeling to help families make healthier choices more easily.
“Creating healthier food environments is essential if we are serious about preventing childhood overweight, obesity and diet-related noncommunicable diseases," said acting WHO Representative to the Philippines Dr. Eunyoung Ko.
The NNC, meanwhile, will work on strengthening its overweight and obesity management and prevention program under the Philippine Plan of Action for Nutrition (PPAN) 2023–2028.
The plan promotes healthy habits among children, improves data systems, and expands access to affordable and nutritious food.
“Obesity is not a failure of individuals — it is often a failure of systems,” Unicef’s Kyungsun Kim said.
Everyone should be locked in on fixing the flaws that prevent those systems from functioning at maximum efficiency.
