The impact of junk food advertising
Research shows that unhealthy food and drink advertising has a powerful influence on children, shaping what they eat, want, and ask for.
Watch the video below to see how primary school students react when shown unhealthy food and drink ads.
Between 2016-18, $129.5 million was spent on sugary drink ads from 2016-18 in Australia — around 5 times more than government spending on public health campaigns.
Kids exposed to unhealthy food ads are over 2 times as likely to ask a parent for a product they’d seen advertised.
The wallpaper in our kids' lives
Did you know that kids in Victoria are bombarded with at least 25 unhealthy food and ads every single day as they go about their lives? On buses, trams, trains, at stations, shelters and platforms – even billboards around schools – they're surrounded.
Nearly 6 in 10 food ads on government-owned public transport assets in Victoria promote junk food.
What protections are already in place?
Australian governments currently have no formal standards that protect children from unhealthy food marketing. Instead, the processed food and advertising industries have been allowed to design their own voluntary codes for how they market unhealthy food to children.
Unsurprisingly, the codes they have developed only apply in limited circumstances and do little to protect children’s exposure to unhealthy food and drink advertising.