A/71/282 the right direction to regulate the food industry, including through labelling initiatives, advertising restrictions and economic measures. 1. Regulatory measures 76. Nutrition labels allow people to make informed decisions on their food options and incentivizes food manufacturers to reformulate their products to target health conscious consumers. Many countries have mandatory nutrient lists on pre-packaged foods, and some have gone further to implement creative schemes to alert consumers about foods that undermine their nutritional welfare. For example, Australia has adopted a voluntary “health star rating” that rates foods from least to most healthy; Chile has food labels with a “stop sign” warning message when calorie, saturated fat, sugar or sodium limits have been exceeded; and Ecuador requires packaged foods to carry a “traffic light” label indicating fats, sugar and salt by colour. Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden use a voluntary keyhole -shaped logo to flag products containing less fat, salt and sugar, while Finland uses a heart -shaped symbol to indicate which products are better options in terms of sodium content. 77. Some countries, such as Australia, the Republic of Korea and the United States, require restaurant chains to include information on energy and nutrient content or warning labels on sodium content. Clear standards are also needed on the use of nutrition and health claims to prevent consumers from being misled. In the United States, public demand for increased transparency has led to several attempts to implement mandatory-labelling schemes for genetically engineered foods. 78. Although WHO has recommended that the private sector adopt evidence-based “responsible marketing”, and despite some positive initiatives as described above, ensuring informative labelling is still an uphill battle for nutrition and health advocates. 55 79. Advertisements influence people’s food preferences and habits. Recognizing that children are especially exposed to aggressive marketing and promotion strategies by food and beverage companies, some States prohibit media advertising to children for certain “restricted” food and drink products. In Chile, for example, where children form more than 20 per cent of the audience, mandatory regulations restrict advertising to children under 14, while Taiwan Province of China bans the advertising of restricted foods on channels dedicated to childr en, levying fines for violations of its regulations. Brazil imposes strict regulations, prohibiting any “abusive publicity” and strategies that appeal directly to children and adolescents. In practice, however, there seem to be many difficulties in impleme nting such restrictions. 80. To encourage increased consumption of healthy foods by children, some countries have implemented vegetable and fruit programmes at schools, imposed mandatory prohibitions on serving foods classified as unhealthy, and banned vending machines. Poland recently banned the sale of foods high in sugar, salt and fat in all schools, and Mexico introduced a similar ban in 2010. Other initiatives include implementing “green food zones” prohibiting the sale of fast food within the __________________ 55 16-13441 Sims, “Obesity prevention” (see footnote 32); George Kimbrell and Aurora Paulson, “The constitutionality of State-mandated labelling for genetically engineered foods: a definitive defence”, Vermont Law Review, vol. 39, No. 2 (winter 2014). 19/24