A Children's Rights Perspective on Food Advertising to Children

This article applies the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to the regulation of food advertising for the prevention of childhood obesity, evaluating the advertising regulation in six jurisdictions against the principles of the Convention. It finds that the Convention would support strict regulation of food advertising for the prevention of childhood obesity; and in particular that such regulation would be appropriate to the model of co-operation between the state and parents that the Convention posits. The article also raises the question whether the grooming of children as consumers through advertising might be a form of economic exploitation.