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A teacher’s perspective: unhealthy food and drink advertising to children

Thursday 30 June, 2022

Join thousands of Victorians calling for unhealthy food and drink advertising to be removed where kids commute, learn and play.

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As a Primary School teacher, Mitch sees first-hand the impact of unhealthy food and drink advertising on his students.

Seeing it on billboards, trams and buses on his own route to school, he says this constant presence of fun, colourful advertising for unhealthy food and drinks has a strong influence on his students, shaping what they talk about, ask for and want.

“As a classroom teacher, I hear conversations around unhealthy foods that kids have seen whether that’s on YouTube or public transport and there’s never any conversations about the healthy choices they’ve made. They’re always talking about those unhealthy foods they’ve been exposed to.

“When they’re learning, playing or growing, they’re seeing a lot of advertisements through their everyday life and I can see that it’s having an influence on the decisions they make.”

“Companies shouldn’t be allowed to have so much power over such a young audience”

Watch the video below to hear why Mitch is so passionate about creating healthier environments for kids to grow up in.

 

The power of advertising

Our kids are surrounded by advertising for unhealthy food and drink everywhere they turn – on buses, at train stations, on TV, online and even around their schools, they’re being hit with at least 25 of these ads every day.

We know this advertising has a powerful influence on children, increasing exposure to these unhealthy food and drink products, creating strong brand awareness and ultimately driving consumption of these foods.

To see the power of this advertising in action, we showed a group of primary school students a collection of advertisements for unhealthy food and drink to see their true reactions.

Listen to what they had to say:

 Together, we can stop the processed food industry influencing our kids. Add your name to our statement to help us protect children from unhealthy food and drink advertising where they commute, learn and play.

Join us

Together, we can protect our kids from unhealthy food and drink advertising.

Sign our statement

Add your name to our statement to protect children from unhealthy food and drink advertising. Add your name

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Your examples of unhealthy food and drink advertising will help strengthen our call for government action. Upload your image

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