UN report exposes Moroccan companies' unethical practices regarding baby formula

The World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) published a report, on February 22, revealing formula companies using unethical marketing practices that ignore and violate international standards related to infant feeding.

The report, entitled “How formula marketing practices affect our infant feeding decisions,” revealed that the infant nutrition industry directly influenced the food choices of parents by “influencing health workers from all over the world through promotional products, free samples, research funding, meeting, event and conference expenses, and even commissions on product sales.”

According to the report, the companies target mothers by using marketing methods that disregard international standards related to infant feeding, misleading parents, and sending inaccurate messages to healthcare providers.

From a scientific standpoint, it violates the International Code for the Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes.

Based on interviews with parents, pregnant women, and health care professionals in eight countries, the report indicates that in Morocco only 35% of mothers breastfeed exclusively from 0 to 6 months.

The report further finds that 38% of Moroccan mothers were offered recommendations for specific milk brands by health professionals. Additionally, 19% of mothers were offered free milk samples inside the hospital, 20% were offered samples outside the hospital, and 26% were offered samples both inside and outside of the hospitals.

However, 49% of Moroccan women were interested in exclusively breastfeeding their children, while 47% wished to breastfeed using artificial means, and 5% desired mixed breastfeeding.

This report exposes the unethical marketing tactics used by the formula industry, which is estimated to be worth a whopping $55 billion, to influence parents’ decisions about feeding their children.

Using data from 8,500 parents and pregnant women from Bangladesh, China, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, the UK, and Vietnam, the report confirms that formula marketing practices influence 84% of UK women, 92% of Vietnamese women, and 97% of Chinese women to purchase milk formulas.

Breastfeeding for the first hour after birth, accompanied by exclusively breastfeeding for six months, then continuous breastfeeding for two years or more offers a strong line of defense against all forms of child malnutrition, including obesity, the report states.

Breastfeeding protects the child against many childhood diseases and lowers a woman’s risk of developing diabetes, obesity, and some types of cancer in the future, the study further finds.

Worldwide, however, only 44% of infants under the age of 6 months are exclusively breastfed.

During the past two decades, breastfeeding rates have only increased very slightly in the world, while sales of formula milk preparations have almost doubled.