The ads include not only obviously unhealthy foods such as candy or processed foods, but also non-alcoholic drinks which are nonetheless not appropriate for youngsters.

The completed report, conducted by the University of Tartu in conunction with the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that 69 percent of food and drink advertisements should not be viewed by minors, as they encourage the wrong eating habits and unhealthy lifestyles.

Ele Kiisk, information management specialist at the Institute of Family Medicine and Public Health of the University of Tartu, said that children and young people represent an important target group for the food industry, because in addition to being customers, they can act as influencers on the purchasing decisions of their family and their peers.

Kiisk said: "Children are a vulnerable target group, as their developmental characteristics affect the understanding of advertising messages and allow them to be exploited. Children's exposure to advertisements for unhealthy foods and beverages also increases their consumption."

Obesity among young people in Estonia has been increasing year on year, the expert said. According a the 2002 health behavior survey of Estonian schoolchildren, 6 percent of students aged 11-15 in Estonia were overweight, whereas in a 2022 study, the figure had risen to one in three from the same age group.

Kadi Reintam, adviser to the Department of Public Health of the Ministry of Social Affairs, said the recent study reveals that the current Estonian Broadcasting Union's code of conduct and self-regulation does not protect children from food and drink advertisements with regard to products which do not promote health and well-being.

"We are seeing that in order to combat the ever-growing problem of obesity, we need to ensure, among other measures, that children are protected from inappropriate advertising," Reintam said.

The study, conducted in May 2023, recorded all advertisements shown on commercial channels TV3, Kanal 2 and Nickelodeon Junior over a four-day period, and analyzed the food and beverage advertisements were analyzed separately.

Over the period in question, food and beverage (categorized based on WHO methodologies) advertisements were shown more than any other category and came to nearly a third of the total.

Of that total, 69 percent of ads should not have been shown to children, again based on baselines set up by the WHO. In other words of an average of just under 11 such commercials shown per hour, just over seven were unsuitable for minors.

Kiisk said commercials for chocolates and candy (20.3 percent of the total), various beverages including mineral water, coffee, Coca-Cola and non-alcoholic alcoholic beverages (12.9 percent) and fresh and frozen meat products (10.4 percent) were most often carried, from the food and drink category.

Kiisk said that the four main behavioral risk factors associated with premature death from non-communicable diseases are: An unbalanced diet, tobacco use, excessive alcohol consumption and a lack of physical activity. "Overweight and obesity cause more than 1.2 million deaths per year in the WHO European Region. After high blood pressure, nutritional risks and tobacco use, overweight and obesity are the fourth cause of death," Kiisk said.

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