The working group that assessed the impact of the law restricting food advertising aimed at children and young people wants to regulate food marketing strategies marketing of digital influencers and increase the scope of the legislation to 18 years.
Experts are concerned about the digital environment, recalling that around 80% of the violations detected occurred online, and suggest improving “the Portuguese legal framework to allow for the regulation of security strategies marketing of digital content creators (“influencers”).”
“This is one of the challenges that Portugal, and other countries, are facing at the moment, because the digital environment is difficult to control and monitor and we probably don’t have the right tools for this purpose,” Maria João Gregório, director of the National Programme for the Promotion of Healthy Eating at the Directorate-General for Health (DGS), told Lusa.
He says that one has already been tested Tool that uses artificial intelligence to identify which ads children are exposed to when browsing different social media platforms, but only as a pilot study, and recalls that these applications “have a number of challenges, particularly related to data protection issues”.
In an attempt to find solutions, the official explains that Portugal has been working in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), which has been developing new tools and applications over the past few years to help Member States carry out this monitoring.
Maria João Gregório also remembers that “the marketing “Digital has no borders” and acknowledges that “it is difficult, on platforms that are not based in our country, to be able to enforce national legislation.”
As to influential peopleHe says that a manual of good practices is being prepared, together with the General Directorate of Consumer Affairs. (DGC).
The working group, coordinated by the DGS and including representatives from the DGC, the Directorate General of Education and the Directorate General of Veterinary Medicine, was responsible for evaluating the impact of the 2019 law that restricted advertising aimed at minors under 16 years of age of foods and beverages with a high energy value, salt, sugar and fat.
In the first evaluation report, which will be made public on Friday, the experts suggest changing the age limit for the application of the law to 18 years, in order to achieve “greater alignment with the other restrictions on minors provided for in the Advertising Code”, as well as better monitoring of the WHO recommendations on this matter.
They also recommend investing more in research projects to develop “technological solutions that are capable of more effectively monitoring the marketing digital”one of the difficulties encountered.
The experts also call for “more agile monitoring mechanisms” of food advertising around schools and playgrounds, in particular defining “a system of report of the communication campaigns available in billboards of these areas”, together with the municipalities.
They also suggest conducting a national food survey periodically, every five years, as well as access to other indicators of food consumption, in particular data on the volume of food sales, to “allow for quality data to assess the impact of this and other public health measures.”
As for the impact of the law, they consider that “it still does not seem sufficient to guarantee that children live, move and navigate in environments free of violence.” marketing to unhealthy foods.”
In light of the WHO recommendations in this regard, the report highlights the weaknesses of Portuguese legislation: “It does not protect all minors and does not cover all marketing (such as sponsorship, offers, brand marketingproduct packaging, points of sale), as well as programs with mixed audiences.”
Source: Observadora
