Parents and pregnant women across the world are exposed to aggressive marketing for baby formula milk, revealed a report by two UN agencies. The report “How marketing of formula milk influences our decisions on infant feeding,” said that more than half of the parents and pregnant women felt that they have been targeted with marketing from formula milk companies, much of which is in breach of international standards on infant feeding practices.
The report is the first in a series by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). It draws on interviews with parents, pregnant women, and health workers in eight countries.
INVASIVE MARKETING
The report points out that the $55 billion formula milk industry uses systematic and unethical marketing strategies to influence parents’ infant feeding decisions and exploitative practices that compromise child nutrition and violate international commitments.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said “the report shows very clearly that formula milk marketing remains unacceptably pervasive, misleading and aggressive.” He also called for regulations on exploitative marketing to be “urgently adopted and enforced to protect children’s health.
The report found not only that industry marketing techniques include unregulated and invasive online targeting, but also sponsored advice networks and helplines; offered promotions and free gifts; and influenced health workers’ training and recommendations.
BARRIERS TO BREAST FEEDING
The UNICEF and WHO states that the messages that parents and health workers receive are often misleading, scientifically unsubstantiated, and violate the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes (the Code) – a landmark public health agreement passéd by the World Health Assembly in 1981 to protect mothers from aggressive marketing practices by the baby food industry.
According to the report – which surveyed 8,500 parents and pregnant women, and 300 health workers in cities across Bangladesh, China, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, the United Kingdom and Viet Nam – exposure to formula milk marketing reaches 84 per cent of all women surveyed in the United Kingdom; 92 per cent of women surveyed in Viet Nam and 97 per cent of women surveyed in China, increasing their likelihood of choosing formula feeding.
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell noted; ““False and misleading messages about formula feeding are a substantial barrier to breastfeeding, which we know is best for babies and mothers.”
“We need robust policies, legislation and investments in breastfeeding to ensure that women are protected from unethical marketing practices — and have access to the information and support they need to raise their families,” Catherine Russell said.
MISLEADING MESSAGES
Across all countries included in the survey, women expressed a strong desire to breastfeed exclusively, ranging from 49 per cent of women in Morocco to 98 per cent in Bangladesh. Yet the report details how a sustained flow of misleading marketing messages is reinforcing myths about breastfeeding and breast-milk, and undermining women’s confidence in their ability to breastfeed successfully. These myths include the necessity of formula in the first days after birth, the inadequacy of breast-milk for infant nutrition, that specific infant formula ingredients are proven to improve child development or immunity, the perception that formula keeps infants fuller for longer, and that the quality of breast-milk declines with time.
BREASTFEEDING
Some of the myths around breastfeeding include the inadequacy of breastmilk for infant nutrition; that infant formula improves development or immunity; and that the quality of breast-milk declines with time.
Breastfeeding within the first hour of birth, followed by exclusive breastfeeding for six months and continued breastfeeding for up to two years or beyond, offers a powerful line of defense against all forms of child malnutrition, including wasting and obesity. Breastfeeding also acts as babies’ first vaccine, protecting them against many common childhood illnesses. It also reduces women’s future risk of diabetes, obesity and some forms of cancer. Yet globally, only 44 per cent of babies less than 6 months old are exclusively breastfed. Global breastfeeding rates have increased very little in the past two decades, while sales of formula milk have more than doubled in roughly the same time.
FORMULA MILK SALES
the report notes that large numbers of health workers in all countries had been approached by the baby feeding industry to influence their recommendations to new mothers through promotional gifts, free samples, funding for research, paid meetings, events and conferences, and even commissions from sales, directly impacting parents’ feeding choices. More than one third of women surveyed said a health worker had recommended a specific brand of formula to them.
KEY FINDINGS
- Formula milk marketing is pervasive, personalized, and powerful.
- Formula milk companies use manipulative marketing tactics that exploit parents’ anxieties and aspirations
- Formula milk companies distort science and medicine to legitimize their claims and push their product
- Industry systematically targets health professionals – whose recommendations are influential – to encourage them to promote formula milk products.
- Formula milk marketing undermines parents’ confidence in breastfeeding
- Counter-measures can be effective, but must be comprehensively expanded and scaled
To address these challenges, WHO AND UNICEF CALLED on governments, health workers, and the baby food industry to end exploitative formula milk marketing and fully implement and abide by the Code requirements. This includes:
- Passing, monitoring and enforcing laws to prevent the promotion of formula milk, in line with the International Code, including prohibiting nutrition and health claims made by the formula milk industry.
- Investing in policies and programmes to support breastfeeding, including adequate paid parental leave in line with international standards, and ensuring high quality breastfeeding support.
- Requesting industry to publicly commit to full compliance with the Code and subsequent World Health Assembly resolutions globally.
- Banning health workers from accepting sponsorship from companies that market foods for infants and young children for scholarships, awards, grants, meetings, or events.