Consumers are exposed to powerful and prevalent food marketing in their food environment. Such marketing is predominantly of foods and non-alcoholic beverages that undermine healthy diets and negatively shapes food preferences and values. To address this challenge, and to support Member States in implementing policy measures, as recommended by the Framework for Action from the 2014 Second International Conference on Nutrition, the World Health Organization (WHO) is in the process of developing evidence-informed policy guidelines on the food environment, including on policies to protect children from the harmful impact of food marketing.
This review on contextual factors to be considered in the implementation of policies to restrict food marketing was prepared as part of the required process for WHO guideline development. The factors considered in this review are values, resource implications, equity and human rights, feasibility and acceptability by stakeholder, as well as socio-cultural and environmental acceptability. A total of 244 publications were included in the review, the majority for acceptability (n = 118), resource implications (n = 59) and values (n = 58).