CITATION: Tackling marketing of formula milk: process matters
The Lancet Global Health
Editorial| volume 10, issue 4, e448, april 01, 2022
Published:April, 2022 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(22)00094-8
'At the end of February, WHO and UNICEF launched a co-commissioned report [*] on the impact of marketing of breast-milk substitutes in infant feeding decisions and practices. The report received significant global media coverage with the headline that 51% of parents surveyed have been targeted by formula milk companies. The messages are stark. Formula milk marketing was found to be “pervasive, personalized and powerful” and used distorted science to manipulate and exploit parents’ anxieties and aspirations, undermining their confidence in breastfeeding.
'The report makes clear the issue is marketing practices around formula milk, not the product itself, and acknowledges that formula milk “has its place for women who are not able to, or do not want to breastfeed”. Such acknowledgment is of paramount importance. Just as parents’ strong desire to nourish their babies should not be manipulated by sophisticated yet misleading marketing of breastmilk substitutes, neither should they be judged for not breastfeeding. Guilt and shame are very effective motivators of human behaviour that can be misappropriated even when the behaviour itself is positive...
'International recommendations to eliminate reprehensible infant formula marketing practices have been flouted for too long. The actions called for by this report — robust, enforceable regulation, including of digital platforms, and strengthened conflict of interest policies — are welcome and urgent.'
* https://www.unicef.org/media/115916/file/Multi-country%20study%20examini...
Neil Pakenham-Walsh, HIFA Coordinator, neil@hifa.org www.hifa.org
