Advertising and obesity
According to the World Health Organization, there are globally more than 1.6 billion overweight adults. The prevalence of overweight and obesity is still increasing in developed and developing countries. The trend is particularly alarming in children and adolescents; 20 million children under the age of 5 are overweight. FrieslandCampina takes this information very seriously and we therefore developed a new corporate standard on advertising in relation to obesity. This standard will apply from 1 January 2010.
What’s the problem?
Many young children under the age of 6 have difficulty understanding that advertising is a tool used to sell products. It is not until around the age of 12 that most children are able to fully comprehend the purpose of advertising. If companies do not take a responsible approach to their marketing practices, it can lead to unhealthy eating patterns and lifestyles.
Our aim
By developing a corporate standard, we want to contribute to responsible marketing practices, especially those geared at children, in order to help them develop healthy eating patterns and to prevent overweight and obesity.
What do we do to reach this goal?
Preventing and combating overweight and obesity is a shared responsibility of consumers, governments, NGOs as well as food producers and food suppliers.
As FrieslandCampina, we see it as part of our responsibility to constantly contribute to addressing this challenge. So when it comes to advertising in relation to obesity, we comply with local legislation, agreed voluntary national advertising codes in the country of sale and our new standard. This means for instance in the Netherlands, that the voluntary code of the FNLI is also applicable, in addition to the rules of the FrieslandCampina standard.
Content of the corporate standard
The scope of the corporate standard encompasses all advertising and promotional actions worldwide for FrieslandCampina branded products. It sets rules for advertising in general, advertising aimed at children in general, advertising geared at children under the age of 12 in the European Union (EU) and school (milk) programmes. Our goals are clear: we want to make sure we don’t mislead the consumer or undermine a healthy diet or lifestyle, we don’t abuse the confidence of children, we protect children (in and outside the school environment) and stimulate healthy eating patterns and lifestyles.
The rules we developed are comparable to the rules used by other leading food companies. You may wonder why the standard contains specific rules for advertising geared at children under the age of 12 in the EU. As you may know, obesity and marketing aimed at children are topics that are being debated globally but especially in the EU. The European Union encourages the member states to develop self regulating advertising codes and will evaluate the progress in 2010. So FrieslandCampina will only advertise healthy foods aimed at the specific target group of children under the age of 12 in the EU.
FrieslandCampina worldwide
While obesity is a big problem in one part of the world, starvation is a huge issue in others. We are aware of this and therefore FrieslandCampina works towards better future prospects for people in all parts of the world. Discover what we do in other societies.