Marketing Restrictions
Exposure to the food and beverage industry’s pervasive marketing shapes food choices, particularly among children. Vital Strategies helps civil society partners secure government restrictions on these marketing strategies and expose industry tactics, such as sports sponsorships.
What Are Marketing Restrictions on Unhealthy Foods?
Regulating how, when and where unhealthy foods—especially ultra-processed products—are marketed is essential to protect children and others from predatory industry practices that shape lifelong eating habits.
The food and beverage industry uses sophisticated marketing tactics to promote unhealthy products, especially targeting children with deceptive claims and pervasive advertising that shape their food choices.
Comprehensive restrictions on unhealthy food and beverage advertising and promotion, across all formats and platforms, are among the most powerful tools to shield children from these tactics. Yet despite their proven effectiveness and cost efficiency, government-led, mandatory marketing restrictions remain critically under-adopted, as industry interferes through political lobbying and sports sponsorships that normalize unhealthy brands and products.
We expose these practices and support our partners to push for strong restrictions that curb marketing where people live, work, study, shop and play.
Our Impact
In Colombia, we have supported partners’ years-long campaign, “Don’t Eat More Lies” (“No Comas Mas Mentiras”), and broader advocacy efforts urging the government to regulate the advertising of ultra-processed products and improve food environments in schools.
Our Capabilities
We use strategic communication to build public and policymaker support for restricting marketing of ultra-processed products.
We’ve built a first-of-its-kind global movement to kick Big Soda out of the world’s largest sporting events, from the 2024 Paris Olympics to the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup and the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and end its sportswashing of the devastating health and environmental harms its products cause.
Kick Big Soda Out
Over 850,000 people from 195 countries and 105 partner organizations across 35 countries have joined our global movement calling for an end to Big Soda’s sports sponsorships, a cornerstone of the industry’s strategy to normalize unhealthy products.
