American children are unwell. A 2025 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that youth health “deteriorated across a broad spectrum of indicators” between 2007 and 2023. Childhood obesity affects about 20% of U.S. children, compared with a global prevalence of about 8.5%. For more than two thirds of children, obesity persists into adulthood, with lasting consequences for lifelong physical and mental health, educational attainment and income.
What if we knew there was a widespread practice that fuels this crisis — one that is well documented by research, that many of our global peers are trying to curb, and that American parents and educators often overlook?
I’m talking about aggressive, multibillion-dollar food and beverage marketing aimed at children.
The average American child sees thousands of food and drink advertisements each year, the vast majority promoting fast food, sugary drinks, cereals and candy. The tactics are familiar: cartoon characters, bright colors, branded scoreboards, school fundraisers, logos on educational materials, advergames, influencers and embedded branding. These messages reach children everywhere they are — television, gaming, social media, packaging, schools and sports.
This marketing works because children are especially vulnerable. Younger kids cannot reliably distinguish entertainment from persuasion nor resist constant reward and appetite cues. Repeated exposure shapes preferences, fuels “pester power” and builds brand loyalty. Teenagers are not immune, either. Between 2012 and 2021, annual global spending on food and beverage marketing to youth rose from $3.5 billion to $4.6 billion, shifting steadily toward digital platforms as children’s screen time increased. Industry invests because it delivers results.
Efforts to rein it in have failed. After a 2006 Institute of Medicine report linking food advertising to obesity risk, industry responded with voluntary self-regulation through the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative — an exercise in box-checking that changed little.
Other countries have gone further. Chile’s 2012 Law on the Nutritional Composition of Food and Advertising imposed warning labels and sharply restricted junk-food ads to kids, especially in schools. Mexico, the UK and many others are experimenting with regulatory policies from taxation to ad bans. Early evidence suggests reduced ad exposure and soda purchases, though longer-term health impacts will take time to measure.
Still, federal regulation is unlikely to solve this problem in the United States. There is no agreed-upon definition of ultra-processed food, and school rules rely on nutrient thresholds that companies easily game. Walk past a school vending machine, and you’ll see plenty of products that meet federal standards while remaining unmistakably junk food — and fully marketable to students.
For this reason, a tobacco-style fix doesn’t translate well. Tobacco had a clear message — don’t smoke — and a clearly harmful product. Nutrition offers no such clarity, no single message and no clean line between acceptable and unacceptable foods.
Voluntary pledges don’t work, yet sweeping federal regulation will be gamed, culturally rejected or challenged on 1st Amendment grounds.
What remains is responsibility closer to home — and real opportunity. Parents and communities can start by limiting children’s exposure in schools and youth sports, where kids are a captive audience. What about the lost revenue for computer labs and sports equipment? Research shows that healthy fundraisers need not cut into school budgets. Across the country, creative communities are using platforms like GoFundMe to raise thousands of dollars through masquerade balls, talent shows, pet parades, haunted houses, poetry slams, trivia nights and more. In 2024, the Edgewood School PTA in Scarsdale, New York, raised $27,770 with its first Read-A-Thon in which students logged 3,100 hours of reading. It’s now an annual event.
This is also a great teaching moment for kids and families, too. Schools can pair these efforts with nutrition education, help children understand how marketing works and model fun, creative ways of building community in support of health.
The deeper argument, though, is moral. We know poor diets harm children’s health. Funding education and activities at the expense of that health is a deeply troubling trade-off. Fortunately, it’s not one we have to make.
Kelly Rogers Victor, Ph.D., MPH, MPP is a writer and consultant on nutrition, health policy and public health. Her columns appear regularly in The Detroit News. Reach her at Kelly@upstreamhealthconsulting.com.
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Rogers Victor: Marketing is the driver of childhood obesity
Reporting by Kelly Rogers Victor / The Detroit News
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