Most parents worry about what their children are seeing on social media. Far fewer spend the same amount of time thinking about what their children are seeing in supermarket aisles, convenience stores, school tuck shops, and online food advertising. Have you ever stopped to think that this kind of messaging may be just as influential?

Most young people today are taught, in some form, to question what they see online. They learn to ask who made this content, why, and what they are trying to get me to do. This kind of media literacy is important – young people need to learn that not everything competing for their attention has their best interests at heart. But that same critical lens is rarely applied to food, even though large food companies are running some of the most sophisticated persuasion campaigns young people will ever encounter. 

A UNICEF-supported study across Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe analysed over 750 food and beverage marketing posts and influencer content popular amongst children. The finding was stark, and a little eye-opening: 96-99% of the products being promoted failed to meet WHO nutritional standards for marketing to children, due to excess sugar or salt. This is not a handful of bad actors; it’s close to the entire landscape of what young people are seeing each day. Closer to home, research mapping outdoor advertising in Soweto found a dense concentration of sugar-sweetened beverage adverts alongside a high density of vendors selling them. Exposure is not limited to screens. It is built into the physical environment young people move through every day (1).

Telling a teenager to “make better choices” assumes the deck is not stacked. But ultra-processed foods are deliberately engineered. Specific combinations of sugar, salt, fat, and texture are tested and refined to maximise how much a person wants to keep eating, often described in food science as finding a product’s “bliss point.” (2) Among low-income South African adults, ultra-processed products already make up around 40% of total calorie intake. While protein intake is generally adequate, only about 15% of adults meet recommended healthy fat intake, as most fats consumed come from ultra-processed sources rich in saturated and trans fats rather than nutrient-dense options (3). That is not a willpower gap. It is the predictable outcome of an environment designed to produce exactly that result. This does not mean people have no agency. It simply means they should be honest about the environment in which those choices are being made. This is why “eat the apple, not the chips” framing falls flat. It treats a systemic, engineered problem as a personal one.

Real nutrition literacy is not a list of “good” and “bad” foods. It is a set of tools for understanding what is happening when one eats. It means understanding why a bowl of sugary cereal can leave one hungry again by mid-morning, while a breakfast centred around eggs or other protein-rich foods often keeps one satisfied for much longer. It means recognising that constant hunger is not always a lack of willpower. Sometimes it is simply biology responding exactly as it was designed to. Once young people can see that pattern in their own bodies, “I am starving again already” stops feeling like a personality trait and starts making physiological sense.

It also means reading past the front of the package, understanding that “low fat,” “no added sugar,” or cartoon mascots are marketing decisions, not nutrition information, and learning to check what is actually in a product. The same questions that underpin media literacy can also underpin nutrition literacy: Who created this? Why was it created? Who benefits if I buy it? How is it being marketed to me? What happens in my body when I consume it? The goal is not cynicism. It is understanding. It also means recognising persuasion techniques. The same critical eye used for spotting sponsored content or misleading headlines can be turned toward influencer food content, bundled meal deals, and advertising placed deliberately near schools.

None of this requires money, nor does it require a perfect food environment. While literacy empowers choice, ultra-processed food often remains cheaper per calorie than fresh food in many South African neighbourhoods, which means addressing affordability and food access remains critically important. A young person who understands why they crave what they crave, and what a product is actually designed to do, has something that cannot be taken away by their budget or their neighbourhood: the ability to make an informed choice, even within a constrained set of options.

At its core, literacy has always been about freedom. The ability to understand the forces acting upon young people allows them to make decisions for themselves rather than simply reacting to the decisions of others. 

Youth Day has always been about young people claiming the right to understand the systems shaping their lives, and to push back against the ones that do not serve them. The food system is one of those systems. In South Africa, where type 2 diabetes affects 11% of adults (and nearly 20% in urban low-income communities) (1), teaching nutrition literacy alongside media literacy is not an add-on to health education. It is part of giving young South Africans the tools to navigate a system that, right now, is mostly designed without their interests in mind, and to identify whole, unprocessed foods like fresh leafy green vegetables, eggs, and full-fat dairy (like amasi) as accessible, nutrient-dense alternatives that support stable blood sugar.

Nutrition literacy is not about memorising dietary rules or obsessing over every ingredient. It is about understanding enough to ask better questions. In a world where billions are spent influencing what young people eat, the ability to recognise persuasion, understand how food affects the body, and think critically about health information may be one of the most valuable forms of literacy they can possess. 

References

1.     United Nations Children’s Fund. (2025). Feeding Profit: How food environments are failing children [Child Nutrition Report 2025]. UNICEF. https://data.unicef.org/resources/feeding-profit-2025-child-nutrition-report/
2.     Moskowitz, H. R., & Krieger, B. (1995). The bliss point for fat, sugar and salt: A paradigm for understanding food preferences. Food Quality and Preference, 6(5), 365–372. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980023002811
3.     Frank, T., Ng, S. W., Lowery, C. M., Thow, A.-M., & Swart, E. C. (2024). Dietary intake of low-income adults in South Africa: Ultra-processed food consumption a cause for concern. Public Health Nutrition, 27(1), e41. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980023002811