Regulation of nutrition and health claims in advertising

Abstract

This article reviews the intentions and assumptions underlying calls for greater regulation of nutrition and health claims in food advertising and examines the likely impact of new European regulations on health-related claims. After providing a review of the literature concerning regulatory effectiveness and on nutritional and health-related claims in advertising, we present a qualitative analysis of television advertisements aired on British television using a coding framework based on recently approved European Union regulations. There is little reason to expect health-related claims in food advertising to become clearer to consumers as a result of the regulations.