Position of the Weight Coalition

The Weight Coalition's objective is to ensure the enforcement of the law prohibiting advertising to children, especially by denouncing practices that break the law to encourage compliance by food and advertising industries.

Lodging complaints to the Office de protection du consommateur (OPC)

• The OPC's resources are insufficient for constant industry surveillance. That is why the Weight Coalition has taken on the mandate to denounce practices that seem to break the law. 
• Complaints lodged in 2007 that led to prosecutions by the OPC and resulted in guilty pleas

Knowledge transfer to other Canadian provinces and territories

Within the Coalitions Linking Action & Science for Prevention (CLASP), the Weight Coalition produced the following documents:

• Report "Food Advertising Directed at Children: Review of Effects, Strategies, and Tactics"
  • completed by Marie-Ève Nadeau from the University of Ottawa
  • reviewing various marketing techniques used by the industry to attain children
• Report "How to stop Junk Food Marketing to Children"
  • produced by Option consommateurs
  • on reglementation prohibiting advertising to children around the world and potential legislative modifications that could be adopted in Canada to protect Canadian children.
• Legal notices on potential legislative modifications in Canadian provinces and territories to ban advertising to children.
• Poster entitled "Advertising to Children: A Public Health Issue"

Other knowledge products

• Brief "L’épidémie d’obésité et la publicité destinée aux enfants" (French only)
• Q & A document (French only)
• Symposia and conferences on this issue