Rohit Shishodia
World health experts have expressed concern over lack of priority given by countries towards children’s health. This is revealed in a joint report prepared by the World Health Organization, UNICEF and Lancet.

The report finds out that no single country is sufficiently protecting children’s health, their environment and their futures. The report, released by a commission of over 40 child and adolescent health experts, discloses that the health and future of every child and adolescent worldwide is under immediate threat from ecological degradation, climate change and exploitative marketing practices.

The report points out that these marketing practices have pushed heavily processed fast food, sugary drinks, alcohol and tobacco at children.

Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and Co-Chair of the Commission, said that despite improvements in child and adolescent health over the past 20 years, progress has stalled, and is set to reverse.

It has been estimated that around 250 million children under five years old in low- and middle-income countries are at risk of not reaching their developmental potential, based on proxy measures of stunting and poverty. But of even greater concern, every child worldwide now faces existential threats from climate change and commercial pressures.

“Countries need to overhaul their approach to child and adolescent health, to ensure that we not only look after our children today but protect the world they will inherit in the future,” she added.

The report, 'A Future for the World’s Children' reveals the distinct threat posed to children from harmful marketing. The report points out that evidence suggests that children in some countries see as many as 30,000 advertisements on television alone in a single year, while youth exposure to vaping (e-cigarettes) advertisements increased by more than 250% in the USA over two years, reaching more than 24 million young people.

Professor Anthony Costello, one of the Report’s authors, said: “Industry self-regulation has failed. Studies in Australia, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and the USA – among many others – have shown that self-regulation has not hampered commercial ability to advertise to children.

He further said, “For example, despite industry signing up to self-regulation in Australia, children and adolescent viewers were still exposed to 51 million alcohol ads during just one year of televised football, cricket and rugby. And the reality could be much worse still: we have few facts and figures about the huge expansion of social media advertising and algorithms aimed at our children.”

The report points out that children’s exposure to commercial marketing of junk food and sugary beverages is associated with purchase of unhealthy foods and overweight and obesity, linking predatory marketing to the alarming rise in childhood obesity.

The report reveals that the number of obese children and adolescents increased from 11 million in 1975 to 124 million in 2016 – an 11-fold increase, with dire individual and societal costs.