The infant formula industry pays social media Already influencers to gain direct access to pregnant women and young mothers, whom they target with personalized content that is difficult to distinguish from advertising, denounced the World Health Organization (WHO).
In the second part of a report that has been dedicated to unraveling the digital strategies currently used by firms that produce formula milk, the WHO points out that these companies can buy or collect personal information to send “offers” personalized to women who may have doubts between the benefits of breastfeeding and industrial milk for babies.
To buy that information, the industry uses applications, virtual support groups or “baby clubs”while paying influencers and consultation forums, says the investigation, the first part of which was published on February 23.
Among the methods used by experts to unravel the way in which digital platforms are used to divert mothers from breastfeeding, the analysis of four million entries on infant feeding stands out, reaching 2.47 billion people and generating 12 million “I like sharing” or comments.
Also, it has been measured that formula milk companies upload content to their social networks approximately 90 times a day and reach 229 million users, three times more than the number of people who read non-commercial posts about breastfeeding.
“The promotion of formula milk should have ended decades ago and the fact that companies are employing more powerful marketing techniques to increase their sales is inexcusable”said a WHO expert, Francesco Branca.
Nearly two hundred WHO member countries set a goal that by 2025 50% of babies under six months would be breastfed, which now seems difficult to meet considering that this rate has remained unchanged by 44% in the last 20 years.
In contrast, sales of formula milk have more than doubled in the same period to reach a value of US$55,000 million (about 52,300 euros).
Estimates contained in the report indicate that failure to meet that goal would result in the deaths of 520,000 children, as well as increased disease and cognitive deficits.
Likewise, the economic repercussion of “not breastfeeding” will imply losses equivalent to 0.7% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) global or US$ 341,000 million (324,264 million euros), according to the calculations of the experts
Source: Gestion
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