Illegal commercial promotion of products competing with breastfeeding

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To assess if the commercialization of infant formulas, baby bottles, bottle nipples, pacifiers and nipple protectors is performed in compliance with the Norma Brasileira de Comercialização de Alimentos para Lactentes e Crianças de Primeira Infância e de Produtos de Puericultura Correlatos (NBCAL – Brazilian Code of Marketing of Infant and Toddlers Food and Childcare-related products). The commercial promotion of these products is prohibited by the Law 11,265. METHOD: Cross-sectional study conducted in 2017 through a census of all pharmacies, supermarkets and department stores that sold products covered by NBCAL in the South Zone of Rio de Janeiro. Health professionals trained at NBCAL used structured electronic form for direct observation of establishments and for interviews with their managers. We created indicators to evaluate commercial practices and performed descriptive analyses. RESULTS: A total of 352 commercial establishments were evaluated: 240 pharmacies, 88 supermarkets and 24 department stores, of which 88% sold products whose promotion is prohibited by NBCAL. Illegal commercial promotions were found in 20.3% of the establishments that sold the products we investigated: 52 pharmacies (21.9%), four supermarkets (7.5%) and seven department stores (33.3%). The most frequent commercial promotion strategies were discounts (13.2%) and special exposures (9.3%). The products with the highest prevalence of infractions of NBCAL were infant formulas (16.0%). We interviewed 309 managers of commercial establishments; 50.8% reported unfamiliarity with the law. More than three-quarters of the managers reported having been visited at the establishments by commercial representatives of companies that produce infant formulas. CONCLUSION: More than a fifth of commercial establishments promoted infant formulas, baby bottles and nipples, although this practice has been banned in Brazil for thirty years. We think it is necessary to train those managers. Government agencies must monitor commercial establishments in order to inhibit strategies of persuasion and induction to sales of these products, ensuring mothers’ autonomy in the decision on the feeding of their children.

Burnout and Stress Measurement in Police Officers: Literature Review and a Study With the Operational Police Stress Questionnaire

“…Moreover, studies have concluded that job stress has consistently increased among police officers in the last decade, and this chronic job stress negatively affects both the person and the organization. Individually, it leads to poor mental health (Baldwin et al, 2019;Castro et al, 2019), work-family conflict (Griffin and Sun, 2018), non-adaptive coping strategies and job stress (LeBlanc et al, 2008;Zulkafaly et al, 2017), emotional labor (van Gelderen et al, 2007), burnout Keinan, 2005, 2007;Rosa et al, 2015), and even suicide (Violanti, 1996;Blazina, 2017;Costa et al, 2019;Grassi et al, 2018). Organizationally, it affects performance (Shane, 2010;Bertilsson et al, 2019;Kelley et al, 2019), counterproductive work behaviors (Smoktunowicz et al, 2015), and inappropriate interactions with citizens, such as the use of excessive force (Neely and Cleveland, 2011;Mastracci and Adams, 2019).…”

Breastmilk Substitutes Marketing Violations and Associated Factors in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

“…This is not a new or unknown commercial legislation: the Brazilian Code has banned any form of commercial promotion of infant formulas, baby bottles, and teats in Brazil since its first version, dated 1988 ( Norma brasileira para comercialização de alimentos para lactentes- Act n°5, 1988). An in-depth description of Brazilian Code violations regarding infant formula found that Nestlé and Danone were the two companies that most frequently had products infringing the national Law (Silva et al, 2020).…”

“…It is noteworthy that the frequent presence of representatives of human-milk substitutes companies in drugstores has been a strategy for indirectly reaching the target audience (women, infants, and toddlers) through their staff. A descriptive study conducted by Silva et al (2020) found that Nestlé was the infant formula company that most frequently visited retail stores’ managers, followed by Danone. Representatives are often empowered by industries to act as “consultants” to clients (Soares et al, 2016).…”

“…All drugstores, supermarkets, and department stores in the Southern Zone of Rio de Janeiro City that sold products covered by the Brazilian Code were studied. A list containing the nominal list of drugstores, supermarkets, and department stores by neighborhood, as well as their addresses, was compiled by consulting the website Tele-Listas (http://www.telelistas.net/rj/rio+de+janeiro), complemented by visiting the websites of major drugstores, supermarkets, and chain department stores, in order to carry out the mapping of all retail stores (Silva et al, 2020).…”

“…After entering the observation data and interviewing the manager, the interviewers reviewed the answers to check for completeness and sent the data via the internet, building a database. (More details regarding data collection can be obtained in Silva et al, 2020)…”