Help us Protect Children

Unhealthy food and drink marketing has become a wallpaper in children’s lives – when they are online, where they live, where they go to school, where they play and when they travel.

The link between junk food marketing and child obesity has been conclusively proven. We are now seeing six year-olds with high blood pressure and young people with early signs of heart disease that used to only be seen in middle age.

We have to do more to protect our children’s health. Currently, one in five children in Ireland are living with overweight or obesity. It is estimated that one in 20 of this generation of children will die prematurely from the long-term effects of overweight and obesity.

Junk food and drink brands understand that children are highly impressionable, and through slick marketing, they are influencing children. Watching one extra junk advert a week is associated with an average increase of 18,000 calories to a child’s diet per year. Shockingly, children see three ads every 10 minutes online.

These ads are working. It’s time to make it stop.

The Irish Heart Foundation wants the Government to take three actions to protect children in Ireland from junk food marketing:

• Ban all online marketing of junk food and drinks
• Extend the broadcast watershed for junk food ads to 9pm
• Remove junk food ads from State owned transport, buildings and other public infrastructure.

Please sign our petition today and tell the Government that you want them to protect the health of all children in Ireland.