Children, a cartoon and sweets.

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VALERY HACHE / AFP

The UFC-Que Choisir, with six other associations of consumers, parents of students, families and patients, launched a petition to "challenge the public authorities" and ask them to better "protect children from the abuses of food marketing », Supporting study.

The seven associations (the Federation of Parents' Councils, the Federation of Parents of Public Education Students, Rural Families, the French Federation of Diabetics, the Environmental Health Network, the UFC-Que Choisir and the National Union of Family Associations), intend to obtain "a law to moralize food marketing", according to a press release accompanying this study.

"While the commitments of the agrifood industry promoted by the public authorities are a failure and the level of childhood obesity is alarming, there is more than ever an urgent need to act to obtain a framework for advertising intended for children in prohibiting the promotion on screens (television and Internet) of foods whose consumption must be limited, ”they say.

Over-representation of too fatty and too sweet foods in children's pubs

The UFC-Que Choisir has calculated in particular that, if "for 'all-public' foods, there is a fairly balanced distribution in the five Nutri-Score classes", "for foods intended for children, there is an overabundance of products that are too fatty, too sweet or too salty ”, in spectacular proportions.

Thus, "88% of the spots" intended for the youngest "concern foods with Nutri-Score 'D' and 'E', that is to say the two most unfavorable rankings from a nutritional point of view (against 43 % for 'general public' foods) ”.

The study "demonstrates the inability of current regulatory and voluntary provisions to protect children from the abuses of food marketing," further pleads the UFC-Que Choisir, which with other associations calls for "the prohibition of advertising for food intended to children with a 'D' or 'E' Nutri-Score, in audiovisual content watched by a large number of children ”, on all television channels and on the Internet.

In addition, “in the absence of generalization of the Nutri-Score, a short practical guide is made available to parents, giving concrete nutritional advice for each moment of consumption and indicating the Nutri-Score of 114 foods intended for children, for each moment of consumption ”, further specifies the UFC-Que Choisir.

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