Abstract

OJUELOS GOMEZ, Francisco José  and  BASULTO MARSET, Julio. Parental freedom as a barrier to the advertising of unhealthy food products aimed at children. Rev Pediatr Aten Primaria [online]. 2020, vol.22, n.86, pp.e65-e80.  Epub Sep 27, 2021. ISSN 1139-7632.

Undoubtedly, children and adolescents require protection against harmful practices. Minors are vulnerable to predatory and inherently exploitative marketing that occurs in a context of massive rule breaking. Although parents do not have enough nutrition or medical expertise, they value children's health highly and change their buying habits when labelling clearly reveals the unhealthy elements of a product. However, the freedom of parents to reject the offer of unhealthy food is not an effective protection mechanism, because the advertising message of unhealthy food is usually misleading. In the legal sense, setting the debate on the plane of freedom forges the debate. Prior to the moment of the election, there has been an infringement of the right to freedom of enterprise or freedom of commercial expression, given that they only cover the making of honest, truthful and lawful advertising. Therefore, the unlawful status in which the advertising of unhealthy foods has been established must be resolved, due to the continued infringement of Article 4 of Regulation 1924/2006 and the massive breaches of the self-regulation codes, in fraud of the Law of Food Security and Nutrition. The incitement, proposition or invitation to carry out harmful activities should also be limited when said character is misrepresented with suggestions that, in other areas of food presentation, the Courts consider them enough to give rise to the risk of confusion.

Keywords : Legislation; Obesity; parental responsibility; Food industry; Food; Marketing.

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