Consumer group brings focus to junk food marketing
You might not have known it, but today is World Consumer Rights Day. This year the consumer group Consumers International is focusing on halting marketing of junk food to children.
The multinational non-governmental organization is asking the World Health Organization for an international code to ban the marketing of junk food to children. Member groups will be out in force today highlighting the need for change in the way junk food is marketed to kids.
Growing up in Generation Junk Food
They call this the Junk Food Generation and say that action must be taken to prevent diseases related to obesity such as heart disease, diabetes and some forms of cancer. The group says these diseases are causing devastation in terms of lives and productivity lost, as well as costs to health services around the world.
The group has collected a lot of information on marketing to children and obesity around the world. It says 22 million children around the world today under the age of 5 are overweight or obese, and that something has to change to prevent this epidemic from spreading.
A World Health Assembly resolution presented last year calls on nations to prevent non-communicable diseases, including those caused by overweight and obesity.
It says that member nations need to “incorporate into their national health programmes strategies for public health interventions designed to reduce the incidence of obesity in children and adults, together with measures to prevent and control diabetes.”
Other Consumers International programs
Consumers International isn’t just focused on keeping junk food out of the hands of portly toddlers. It also has programs that emphasize the importance of indigenous street food, particularly in the global south and Asia and a program publicizing excessive marketing of prescription drugs.
The group is made up of 220 member organizations in 115 countries and supports various efforts for consumer rights, which the group defines as:
- The right to safety when it comes to consumer products
- The right to information
- The right to choice
- The right to be heard
- The right to satisfaction of basic needs
- The right to redress of wrongs
- The right to education
- The right to a healthy environment
World Consumer Rights Day, celebrated on March 15 since 1983, commemorates a speech made in 1962 by president Kennedy outlining the first four consumer rights. It is a day of solidarity for the international consumer rights movement.
(By Sarah E. White for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)
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