Government To Launch £75m Anti-Obesity Marketing Campaign

The government is to spend £75 million on a marketing campaign aimed at helping parents to “make changes to their children’s diet and increase levels of physical activity”.

The ad campaign is part of a £372 million healthy living initiative, unveiled today by health secretary Alan Johnson and secretary of state for children, schools and families, Ed Balls.

In conjunction with the food and drink industry, the government is also developing a Healthy Food Code of Good Practice aimed at creating a single method of labelling foods that have a high fat, salt and sugar content.

It also announced that it is bringing forward Ofcom’s review of restrictions on the advertising of junk food to children to the summer.

It had been feared that a pre-9pm ban on junk food ads would be announced today. However, reports yesterday predicted that this would not be the case (see Government Backs Down On Junk Food Ads)

In response to the plans, Baroness Buscombe, chief executive of the Advertising Association, said: “Obesity is a hugely important and multi-faceted social issue that must be taken seriously. The increase in obesity can be attributed to a complex range of inter-relating causal factors including changes in lifestyle and diet and social, environmental and cultural factors, as the government’s Foresight Report on obesity recently acknowledged.

“The advertising industry has already responded constructively by working with Ofcom and the Advertising Standards Authority on a new regulatory framework for food advertising and new rules are in place for the advertising of food products on television and in other media.

“The ASA’s recently published Food and Soft Drink Advertising Survey 2007 (see ASA Reveals Advertisers Strongly Compliant With Junk Food Ad Rules) demonstrates that there has been a very high compliance rate (99.2%) with the new codes and significantly no ads breached the new rules.

“The advertising industry is acutely aware of the importance of safe, responsible standards and the ASA advertising self-regulatory system is robust, effective and independently administered. The CAP code it administers is self-regulatory but binding on all parties. Self-regulation is clearly the best approach to regulating advertising.”

ASA: 020 7580 5555 www.asa.org.uk