Summary:
This regulation provides for a health control over the advertising of various categories of goods and services, including food and beverages.
Description:
For FULL purposes, this regulation of the general health law on advertising (in Spanish, “reglamento de la ley general de salud en publicidade”) establishes that:
- Advertising for food, dietary supplements, and non-alcoholic beverages:
- should not distort or contravene the provisions regarding nutritional, hygienic, and health education established by the Ministry of Health (Article 20);
- must not present these products as stimulants or modifiers of the physical or mental state of individuals, except in cases recognized by the Ministry of Health (Article 21).
- In the same way, these products must not (Article 22):
- I. Induce or promote eating habits harmful to health;
- II. Claim that the product alone meets the nutritional requirements of humans;
- III. Attribute to industrialized foods a nutritional value that is superior or different from what they actually have;
- IV. Make comparisons that detract from the properties of natural foods.
- V. Express or suggest, through real or fictional characters, that the consumption of these products provides individuals with extraordinary characteristics or abilities;
- VI. Be directly or indirectly associated with the consumption of alcoholic beverages or tobacco, and
- VII. Claim properties that cannot be proven, or that the products are useful for preventing, relieving, treating, or curing a disease, disorder, or physiological state.
- At last, these products must include cautionary messages about the condition of the product, as well as messages promoting a balanced diet or encouraging good hygienic habits (Article 23)
This regulation of the general health law on advertising (in Spanish, “reglamento de la ley general de salud en publicidade”) has been amended several times, the last one was in 2022.