Children’s diets should not be dictated by profit. Nutritious food in early childhood is a right, a measure of social justice, and the smartest investment in Europe’s future. Blog by Dorota Sienkiewicz, Senior Policy Liaison/Expert, EuroHealthNet.
Contrary to what we may believe, we have relatively little control over our food and dietary choices. This is even more true for our children. What, when, and how much we eat is shaped less by individual preference and more by the broader food environments that surround children, families, and communities.
Healthy diets are increasingly out of reach for families with young children, especially those at risk of poverty. Rising costs, aggressive marketing, and weak policy responses leave many unable to provide the nutrition children need.
- Healthy diets growing unaffordable
Between 2017 and 2022, the cost of a healthy diet in EU-27 rose by almost 30%, with the sharpest increases in Eastern and Southern Member States. Since then, the gap has widened: 1,000 calories of fruit, vegetables, and other healthy foods now cost more than double the equivalent calories from processed, less healthy products. Price of healthy items rose by 21% between 2022 and 2024, compared with just 11% for unhealthy ones. 1 in 7 households are food insecure.
For low-income families, this means impossible trade-offs between rent, childcare, energy, and food. The poorest households with children would need to spend up to 70% of their disposable income to provide a recommended diet. This is a clear health equity issue: children most in need of nutritious diets are those most systematically unable to receive them.
- Ultra-processed dominates, fruit and vegetables decline
Children’s diets are increasingly dominated by ultra-processed foods (UPFs), which account for half or more calories in the early years. Across Europe, UPFs provide over 50% of total fat and carbohydrates and up to 70% of sugar intake.
The consequences are visible: 1 in 3 children in this age group lives with overweight or obesity, with highest prevalence in Southern and Eastern Europe. Moreover, there is a clear social gradient: among children from lower-income families, overweight prevalence reaches 27%, compared to only 18% among wealthier peers;—highlighting how food environments reinforce inequality from an early age.
- Aggressive marketing, failure to protect children’s rights
Unhealthy diets are not just a result of cost — they are also aggressively pushed on children as consumers, violating their rights to food, health, and healthy environments. The EU Pledge, a voluntary industry code limiting advertising to children under 13, has been shown inadequate, and the EU Better Internet for Kids (BIK+) strategy has so far not delivered the necessary changes. Evidence shows that children in Europe are still exposed to between 4 and 10 unhealthy food ads on TV daily, nearly twice as many in low-income households.
Marketing is evolving fast, increasingly going digital. Even children under 5 encounter food branding in advergames, influencer content, and virtual gaming platforms like Roblox, Fortnite or YouTube Kids—often through subtle cues like snack-themed characters or branded game skins that normalise unhealthy eating. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds spend significantly more time on such online platforms, increasing exposure. Children also face unhealthy cues in physical environments: supermarket layouts dominated by UPFs, fast-food outlets near schools, vending in public spaces, and the absence of affordable healthy food in disadvantaged areas.
- Commercial determinants of children’s health
Commercial determinants are the systems and practices through which companies influence health and equity, positively or negatively. For children, this includes marketing, product design, pricing strategies, and lobbying.
Too often, these impacts are health-harming. But it doesn’t have to be this way – commercial actors can also be part of the solution if incentives and regulations align. Reformulating products, pricing healthier foods fairly, scaling-up healthy food access by removing VAT rates and subsidising healthy choices, responsible advertising, and accurate labelling are all possible – some countries, regions and cities are already ahead of the curve. The question is whether EU can ensure the level playing field for all countries to have profit motives and economic growth serve children’s rights and health, and not the other way around.
- Rights, justice, and intergenerational fairness
Access to nutritious food is not only a child right under the UNCRC; in the EU it is also recognised through the European Pillar of Social Rights, the European Child Guarantee, and the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child
Yet the EU has no dedicated children’s health strategy. The EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy and the Sustainable Food Systems Framework have stalled, while deregulation pressures grow. One beacon could be the forthcoming EU Cardiovascular Health Action Plan if prioritizing food environments across the lifecourse, starting in early years. WHO Europe’s forthcoming strategy on Children and Adolescents’ Health, and work on the commercial determinants of health and NCDs prevention (and the Global Report on the Commercial Determinants of Health) also offer opportunities to utyoung children at the centre of food environments. The European Network of School-Promoting Schools and EuroHealthNet-led EU-funded Schools4Health project offer valuable resources and good practice to get inspired by.
- A basket of policies, not a silver bullet
No single measure will fix children’s food environments — a comprehensive basket of policies is needed. Finland’s universal free school meals guarantee every child a healthy meal daily, levelling social gradients in diet. This shows that combining fiscal, regulatory, and social policies is essential. Only integrated action can deliver healthier, fairer food systems for children, especially the most vulnerable.
- What Europe must do next
To turn rights into reality, Europe must act decisively on food environments as part of its strategy for child poverty reduction and intergenerational fairness. This is already possible within the context of the European Child Guarantee and the European strategy on the Rights of the Child, but their future of success must be reinforced.
- Implement comprehensive, mandatory measures to transform children’s food environments — including healthier school food provision, clear labelling, bans or ambitious restrictions on harmful marketing (especially digital), fiscal measures such as taxes on unhealthy products, and incentives for food reformulation.
- Improve the availability and affordability of nutritious foods by prioritising fresh, locally produced options in public procurement and subsidies, and ring-fencing investment through the next EU long-term budget, the EU Competitiveness Fund, and a new EU school scheme to ensure all children — particularly those at risk of poverty — can access healthy diets.
- Protect policymaking, science and civic space from corporate vested interests by establishing robust safeguards against undue influence by the ultra-processed food industry, ensuring that children’s rights take precedence over corporate profits.
- Empower families and communities through social and behaviour change initiatives that support healthy food practices, while strengthening social protection measures to address income poverty and guarantee access to adequate nutrition.
- Embed child nutrition and health equity at the core of the EU’s Well-being Economy agenda — aligning actions across health, social, education, agriculture, and cohesion policies, and using EU monitoring (Social Scoreboard, Health Inequalities Portal) to track progress and guide Member States towards upward social and health convergence.
