What’s really in our children’s food?
Behind the labels and the policies shaping young diets in the Philippines
Across the Philippines, baby food, cereals, and toddler snacks fill the shelves of sari-sari stores and supermarkets. They are affordable, convenient, and often marketed as nutritious. For many families, they have become the default option at mealtimes.
But UNICEF’s latest Child Nutrition Report 2025 shows how these products fit into a bigger global crisis. For the first time, obesity has overtaken underweight as the most common form of malnutrition among school-age children globally. One in five children aged 5–19 now lives with overweight, with rates rising fastest in low- and middle-income countries like the Philippines. At the same time, younger children are increasingly exposed to ultra-processed foods and sugary drinks, often from their first year of life.
The illusion of health
In the Philippines, food marketing aimed at children mirrors the global trend described in this report: a toxic food environment where the cheapest and most visible products are also the least nutritious.
A national study of digital food advertising found that 99 per cent of the ads children see online are meant for products high in sugar, salt, or saturated fat—the very ingredients discouraged in early childhood. Nearly half of these ads were designed to appeal directly to toddlers and preschoolers.
By contrast, nutrition standards from the World Health Organization and the Nutritional Guidelines for Filipinos recommend diets based on vegetables, fruits, fish, eggs, and calcium-rich foods, with no added sugar or salt in the first two years of life. At this stage, poor diets are linked to stunting, nutrient deficiencies, and an increased risk of overweight later on.
Yet on store shelves, many products marketed for young children exceed recommended sugar and salt levels while offering little of the nutrients they claim to provide. Parents, often pressed for time and budget, end up relying on labels that give food companies more influence than health experts in shaping what children eat.
Beyond the labels
Commercially processed complementary foods (CPCF) are sold for children aged six months to three years. They include cereals, snacks, meals, and ready-to-eat items meant to supplement breastfeeding or home-cooked food.
A review of 182 CPCF products in the Philippines showed that nearly one in three contained added sugars or sweeteners; among snacks, the figure rose to 87 per cent. Products labeled “no added sugar” often used juice concentrates or syrups, which act the same way but are harder for parents to recognize. More than half had high sodium levels, with salt often listed among the top three ingredients. Even products promoted as fortified supplied only a fraction of the daily nutrients that infants need.
These patterns reflect a wider food environment where ultra-processed products are cheap, familiar, and heavily marketed, while vegetables, fruits, and home-cooked meals are costlier or harder to prepare. The result is clear: nearly half of Filipino children aged 6 to 23 months regularly consume unhealthy food, and most do not meet the minimum acceptable diet, a global benchmark for adequate feeding. Undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies remain widespread. Overweight and obesity are also rising and now affect one in ten children in this age group. Nutritious food has become the least available, least visible, and least affordable option for many families.
A question of policy
Despite growing public concern about children’s diets, most commercially processed complementary foods remain outside regulation. There are no limits on how much sugar, salt, or saturated fat they can contain. Labels are usually in English, leaving many parents without clear information about what they are buying. These gaps give manufacturers free rein to market products in ways that do not match nutrition standards for young children.
One reform under discussion is front-of-package labelling. Simple warning symbols on the front of a pack would flag when a product exceeds recommended limits for sugar, salt, or saturated fat. Unlike marketing slogans or fine print, these labels would give caregivers immediate, clear information on whether a product is suitable for young children. Requiring Filipino or other local languages would add another layer of clarity and help hold manufacturers accountable for what they sell.
Signs of progress
Some communities are beginning to reshape food environments for children. In Southern Cebu, the public market was reorganized to make nutritious food easier to find. Stalls now sell vegetables, rice, and dry goods in a clean, well-marked space where prices are clear. For families shopping here, healthier options are visible and affordable, woven into everyday life. Practical changes such as clearer pricing, cleaner spaces, and better product placement have already influenced what parents choose to buy.
At the city level, new policies are also taking root. Pasig City recently passed an ordinance that prohibits marketing of food and drinks high in sugar, salt, or fat in and around schools, playgrounds, and amusement parks. The law also bans sponsorships and promotions from companies selling products not recommended for children—measures aimed at reducing exposure to unhealthy food advertising and building a healthier school environment.
Children themselves are voicing the same demand. Through UNICEF’s Fix My Food initiative, young people across the Philippines and other countries have shared their experiences of poor diets and called for food that is affordable, accessible, and free from misleading marketing. Their message is clear: food systems should work for children, not against them.
These efforts show what can happen when children’s health is treated as a priority. But across the country, progress remains uneven. Turning policy into practice will require stronger collaboration across sectors and levels of government, and systems that make nutritious, age-appropriate food more available and affordable for families.
What we can do now
National policy is central to protecting children’s diets, yet most of the products actually sold to them remain outside regulation. The Philippine Milk Code restricts how breastmilk substitutes are marketed and bans direct advertising and free samples for infant formula. But cereals, snacks, and instant foods for toddlers fall beyond its scope. This gap has created a gray area that companies continue to exploit. With no clear limits on content or promotion, parents are left vulnerable to marketing that can mislead them into choices that harm their children’s health.
To close this gap, UNICEF is working with the Philippine government through the Consortium for Improving Complementary Foods in Southeast Asia. Together with the Department of Health and the Food and Drug Administration, efforts are underway to set clearer standards for products sold to young children—including what they contain and how they are labelled. Proposed measures include warning labels on the front of packages when sugar or salt exceeds recommended levels, stricter rules on health claims, and mandatory use of Filipino or other widely spoken local languages. These changes aim to make labels more transparent and products more accountable.
Work is also happening at the local level. Some governments are improving markets, restricting unhealthy food marketing near schools, and supporting vendors who sell better options. Each of these choices directly affects what families feed their children every day.
Nutrition is not only a health issue. It is also a matter of policy, systems, and child rights. Real progress will require aligning health, education, agriculture, and social protection around one goal: making good food a real possibility for every child.
