Junk food advertising ban ‘not enough’ to help kids
Steffan Rhys
Western Mail
January 1, 2008
A BAN on junk food advertising during programmes aimed
at children is a “pathetic compromise between the
economic health of broadcasters and the physical health
of children”, campaigners have warned.
The measures, which come into force today, introduce a
total ban on junk food advertising in and around all
children’s programming and on dedicated children’s
channels, as well as in adult programmes which attract a
significantly higher than average proportion of viewers
under the age of 16. Content rules will also apply to
all food and drink advertising to children irrespective
of when it is scheduled and include banning the use of
celebrities and characters aimed at primary school
children or younger.
But the Children’s Food Campaign last night criticised
the measures, which they claimed would have no impact on
the health of young people.
Campaign coordinator Richard Watts said, “This ban will
make little difference to the amount of advertising of
junk food children see.
“If the Government is serious about protecting the
health of young children, it would introduce a 9pm
watershed on advertising.
“These measures still leave the programmes which are
most popular with children, like The X Factor, Ant and
Dec, and Coronation Street, open to such advertising.
“Banning the adverts won’t solve the obesity crisis on
its own but we know advertising affects what people buy
or advertisers wouldn’t do it.”
Today’s ban follows the ban on similar adverts aimed at
children aged four to nine which was introduced on April
1, 2007 and is aimed at improving the health of young
people in Britain.
There has been a growing body of research over soaring
obesity levels recently – including a leaked Department
of Trade and Industry report in July which claimed that
half of all primary school aged boys will be obese by
2050 – and government concerns around over-consumption
of high fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) foods and the
under-consumption of fresh foods, fruit and vegetables.
Rhys Evans, director of the Welsh Consumer Council, said
that while the ban should be seen as a recognition of
the need to address junk food advertising, it was, in
effect, a failure to adequately do so.
“It is an admission that something should be done to
protect children from exposure to this kind of
advertising but if you follow that through to its
logical conclusion you have to ban it in all programmes
that appeal to children,” he said. “This is a halfway
house measure that doesn’t do the job. If you talk to
under-16s, they will name The X Factor and similar
programmes as the most popular, yet these won’t be
covered by the measures. We want to see them going the
whole hog and doing the job properly, looking at what
children are watching and making sure there is no
advertising during those programmes.
“We have already seen a demarcation of adult and
children’s programming through the 9pm watershed and it
makes sense to translate that to advertising.”
Both the Department of Health and the Food Standards
Agency have identified television advertising as an area
where action should be considered to restrict the
promotion of HFSS foods to children and Ofcom’s
co-regulatory partners, the Broadcast Committee on
Advertising Practice and the Advertising Standards
Authority, are now responsible for implementing the new
scheduling and content rules.
In a statement, Ofcom said, “After a detailed analysis
of the evidence, including a full impact assessment,
Ofcom has concluded it is appropriate and necessary to
adopt restrictions intended to reduce significantly the
exposure of children under 16 to HFSS advertising.”