Unhealthy eating did not become normal by accident.
It became familiar through years of brands appearing in lunchboxes, family routines, supermarket offers, sporting occasions and children's entertainment.
No single advertisement created these habits. Their power came from repetition: the gradual process through which products became recognisable, convenient and socially ordinary.
That was the central idea behind my Marketing Ethics essay. The important question was not whether one advert forced someone to make an unhealthy choice. It was whether decades of marketing helped construct an environment in which that choice began to feel completely normal.
Normality is built over time
Food marketing does not need to tell people to eat unhealthily.
It can achieve influence more subtly through colourful packaging, familiar characters, price promotions, loyalty rewards and constant availability. Each interaction appears relatively insignificant. Together, they make products easier to recognise, easier to purchase and easier to incorporate into everyday routines.
Marketing does not remove consumer choice. It helps design the environment in which that choice is made.
This is particularly important for children. The World Health Organization concludes that food marketing can influence children's preferences, dietary intake, purchase requests and developing norms around food consumption.
A child can develop a relationship with a brand long before they can evaluate its nutritional implications.
The argument still requires nuance
Ultra-processed food is a broad and contested category. Not every product classified as ultra processed carries the same nutritional value or health implications.
The UK Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition considers the association between higher UPF consumption and adverse health outcomes concerning. However, it also acknowledges that the evidence cannot yet determine how much of that association results from processing itself and how much reflects established concerns such as excessive calories, saturated fat, salt and free sugars.
That uncertainty should prevent oversimplification. It should not prevent scrutiny of how less healthy products are marketed.
The ethical issue is not that every UPF is equally harmful. It is that marketing can encourage frequent consumption without presenting frequency as part of the decision.
Regulation cannot reach every influence
Since 5 January 2026, advertisements for identifiable less healthy food and drink products have been prohibited from paid online media. They are also restricted on television and on-demand services between 5:30am and 9:00pm.
These restrictions matter, particularly for younger audiences. However, they address only part of the wider marketing environment.
Packaging, supermarket placement, loyalty programmes and price promotions can continue influencing behaviour even when a conventional advertisement is absent.
A campaign may comply with the law while still contributing to a culture of frequent consumption.
The question beyond compliance
Marketing will always influence behaviour. That is part of its purpose.
The ethical responsibility lies in recognising when repeated influence exploits limited attention, financial pressure or an audience's inability to understand the longer-term consequences.
Legal compliance asks whether a particular advertisement is permitted.
Marketing ethics asks something harder: what behaviour are years of branding, promotion and repetition helping to make normal?
The most powerful marketing is often the marketing we stop noticing.