Food Fight Continues Over Children’s Advertising
The Children’s Food Bill was re-introduced to Parliament yesterday afternoon by Mary Creagh MP, reigniting the debate over food advertising to children, and the possibility of an outright ban on the promotion of so-called ‘junk food’ to young TV viewers.
A new report, The Children’s Food Bill – Why we need law, not more voluntary approaches, was also presented to Parliament, claiming that the food advertising industry is too unstable to make voluntary approaches to regulation successful.
Commenting on the issue, Charlie Powell, co-ordinator for the Children’s Food Bill campaign at Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming, said: “The Government’s plan that the tobacco and alcohol industries would self-regulate and stop marketing practices which encourage young people to consume their products has not worked. There is no reason to believe that Government’s hope that voluntary self-regulation can stop food and drink firms targeting children with advertising and promotions for ‘junk’ foods will be any more successful.”
The competitiveness within the food advertising market was stressed, by Sustain, with the group claiming such fierce competition is behind the failure of voluntary approaches to protect children.
Powell added: “Together with our wide coalition of 137 national supporting organisations, including many prominent medical and health organisations, professional associations and children’s charities, we are calling upon the Government to introduce statutory measures to protect children’s health from such commercial influences.”
The re-introduction of the Children’s Food Bill coincided with the British Medical Association publishing a major report, with research demonstrating that food promotions influence children on their food preferences, purchase behaviour, preferences and consumption.
The debate surrounding food advertising to children is a long-running one. The Food Standards Agency considered the use of cartoon characters in food marketing as part of its white paper on obesity last November, stating that an outright ban would not succeed in reducing child obesity.
However, while many health groups have disagreed, the Advertising Association has warned that food marketing restrictions could cost the industry upwards of £375 million, equating to around three quarters of its total annual revenue (seeRestrictions On Food Advertising Could Cost £375 Million).
Earlier this year, Consumer group Which? called on the Food Standards Agency to draw up guidelines on the use of cartoon characters to promote products to young audiences (see Advertisers Slammed Over Cartoon Food Campaigns).
The consumer watchdog pointed to the results of its recent study into the area, dubbed Shark Tales and Incredible Endorsements, which reported that 77% of respondents believed the use of popular cartoon characters on food packaging and advertising made it difficult for parents to say no to their children, with pester power outweighing health messages over foods high in fat, salt and sugar.
DCMS: 020 7211 6200 www.dcms.gov.uk Sustain: 020 7837 1228 www.sustainweb.org