The latest UNICEF report, Feeding Profit: How Food Environments Are failing children, should stop us in our tracks. Across the world, obesity among children and adolescents is rising faster than undernutrition. South Asia — once known for malnutrition — has seen overweight among 5-19-year-olds multiply fivefold in just two decades. India is no different.

The culprit has been identified: ultra-processed foods (UPFs). Made to be tasty, cheap, and addictive, they come wrapped in colourful packs, marketed as fun and convenient, yet stripped of nutrients and loaded with sugar, salt, and fat. And if the foods and beverages themselves weren’t persuasive enough, the advertising that sells them does the rest.

UNICEF found that three out of four young people had seen ads for unhealthy foods just in the last week. Think about that: before a child makes a single food choice, the decision has already been shaped by a chorus of cheerful jingles and slick visuals.

Data snapshot: UNICEF Report 2025

Take a recent Blinkit commercial. The quick-commerce platform, famous for its 'ten-minute delivery' promise, shows two teens indulging in impulsive consumption of UPFs to satisfy casual cravings. The ad is playful, catchy, and clever — everything good advertising should be.

But here’s the rub: when the star of the show is a packet of chips or sugar-laden treats, the message children absorb is that snacks are not just food — they are fun, fashionable, and cool. You click, they arrive, and before you know it, the craving is fulfilled and the impulse rewarded.

It would be naïve to imagine that advertising alone can reverse the tide. Producers of fresh foods, traditional snacks, and healthier alternatives rarely have the financial muscle or marketing budgets of multinational corporations pushing UPFs. The playing field is tilted.

But that is precisely why ethical responsibility within the advertising industry matters. Even when campaigns are funded by big snack brands, a little more concern and creativity could tone down the projection of these products. Do we really have to glamorise them as the “Ultimate Popular Fun Foods” (UPFFs)? Clever storytelling can sell indulgence without disguising it as everyday nutrition. And when opportunities arise to promote healthier options — even with smaller budgets — the industry’s talent can amplify those voices with imagination and rigour as part of its social responsibility.

Children and adolescents, the most impressionable audiences, end up paying the price if profits alone determine communication. They are being trained to snack faster than they can spell “nutrition.”

The solutions are not complicated; they just require commitment and responsibility.

1. Put warnings where the ads are. If tobacco ads must say “Smoking Kills,” why shouldn’t snack ads say: “This is an Ultra-Processed Food — Harmful to Health. User discretion advised.”

2. Colour-code the shelves and the screens. A traffic-light system could make the risks visible at a glance: Red for ultra-processed, Amber for moderately processed, Green for fresh and wholesome. Extend this to e-commerce platforms so consumers see the health grade before they hit “buy now.”

3. Rebalance visibility: Give healthier foods equal billing on apps and in stores. It is not about banning snacks, but about offering fair competition to better choices.

4. Educate early: Schools and parents can help children decode ads — to see not just the cute jingle, but the intent behind it.

5. Use taxes as a lever. Fiscal policy can be just as effective in reshaping consumer choices. Around the world, “sin taxes” on tobacco, alcohol, and sugary drinks have curbed consumption. India can extend the principle to ultra-processed foods.

A tiered GST system could make the distinction clear:

• Red-category UPFs (chips, colas, confectionery) are taxed at the highest slab.
• Amber-category products at a mid-level slab.
• Green-category foods like fruits and staples are exempt or even subsidised.

This nudges both consumers and producers. Shoppers rethink their baskets, while companies have an incentive to reformulate products to escape the red zone. Revenues from such taxes could be ploughed back into school nutrition programmes and public health campaigns — making the tax not just punitive but restorative.

The Blinkit snack ad is just a case in point — a reminder of how powerfully advertising can shape behaviour. The real question is: do we want this creativity to keep feeding cravings, or could it be harnessed to promote healthier habits?

Cute ads should not lead to chronic disease. If we do not reset the rules — through warnings, colour codes, taxes, and a more ethical advertising culture — we risk raising a generation for whom obesity, diabetes, and heart disease arrive earlier than opportunity.

The health of our children must never be the price we pay for someone else’s clever marketing — or their profits.

The author is a trustee at Population First.