Grant: Catalyst Grant: Ethics

Canada's Health Ministers recently pledged to reduce unhealthy food and beverage advertising to children, in order to tackle childhood obesity and unhealthy eating habits. Yet governments, public health advocates, and the food industry have not been able to agree on the best policy going forward. Part of this conflict has been an ethical and moral debate. Some people feel that government should regulate to protect children from harmful advertising. Others argue that young people are consumers that should be free to access all kinds of food information, including ads. In this project, we will conduct a national consultation with individuals from public health, the food industry, government, and parents to help move towards an ethical consensus about food advertising to children. We plan to put together a toolkit that can be used in future public health policy discussions as well as future research in this area.