7.3.10. Food advertising regulations

This intervention entails the implementation of a complete statutory ban of food advertisements on television, targeting children less than 18 years of age, with the intent of limiting their consumption of calorie-dense and/or highly processed food. The intervention is assumed to be initiated by the government, and may include both regulatory and enforcement components to support maintenance of healthier dietary patterns among children.

Based on a systematic review and meta-analysis [Boyland et al., 2016 [4]], as well as further analysis described in [Goryakin et al., 2017 [22]], this statutory ban would correspond to a 0.31 kg/m2 lower average BMI among children. This is also consistent with a previous OECD study [Sassi, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. and World Health Organization., 2010 [52]], that modelled a reduction of BMI of between 0.13 kg/m2 to 0.34 kg/m2 among children in comparable age groups.

This policy is assumed to affect all children aged between 5 and 18. The reduction in BMI is assumed to be age dependent: for those between 5 and 12 years, BMI would be reduced by 0.12 kg/m2 within one year, and staying on a new parallel trend until the age of 12. For those between the ages of 12 and 18, the reduction is assumed to be larger: a drop in BMI by 0.31 kg/m2 relative to counterfactual within one year. Finally, those reaching the age of 18 would have a linear decrease of effectiveness until reduction of BMI to 0.155 kg/m2 relative to the counterfactual, which remains for the rest of life. Based on research showing that exposure to advertising in childhood may affect consumer product evaluation that persists for many years into adulthood [Connell, Brucks and Nielsen, 2014 [12]], it is assumed that this effect will persist for the rest of life.

The intervention programme will include expenses on administration and planning at the national and local levels, as well as monitoring and enforcement costs. In addition, minor training may be required for communication authority staff charged with the task of overseeing the implementation of the scheme. This cost varies between USD PPP 0.52 and USD PPP 0.59 per capita annually across the countries included in the analysis.