Health experts and anti-obesity groups have called for a total ban on junk-food advertising during peak children's viewing times. This comes in the wake of the release of the research finding of the Obesity Policy Coalition that conducted a telephone survey of 1,521 adults says that 84 per cent of consumers believe children should be protected from unhealthy food advertising.
The coalition's strategy, to be launched today, is the most comprehensive produced in Australia to limit big business targeting children with junk-food advertising. It recommends unhealthy food ads on TV be banned on weekdays from 6am to 9am and 4pm to 9pm, and weekends and school holidays from 6am to noon and 4pm to 9pm. According to OPC senior policy adviser, Jane Martin, childhood obesity rates were of great concern. “We have a runaway train, and we need to slow this juggernaut, we need to slow it down and turn it around…Compared to previous generations, young people are likely to suffer a decline in life expectancy because of obesity. Children are very vulnerable and they can't detect the difference between advertising and entertainment when they are very young, so it's not really ethical to be targeting them in this way,” she said.
She explained that voluntary codes developed by the food industry, and in place since 2009, which purported to ensure food advertising directed at children represented healthier choices, was not working. “Our analysis indicates the current self-regulation system is utterly ineffective in protecting children from being the target of junk food advertisers. It is now time for the Government to step in and cease the pervasive promotion of junk food to children on TV, via the internet and through direct marketing,” she said.
The survey found that nearly 60 per cent of more than 1500 adults surveyed nominated TV advertising or toy giveaways as having the biggest impact on their children when asking for unhealthy food. The Obesity Coalition includes the Cancer Council, VicHealth, Diabetes Australia, Deakin University's WHO Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention, and is backed by the AMA and a host of public health organisations.
However the chief executive of the Australian Food and Grocery Council, Kate Carnell, said bans on the advertising of junk food to children in Sweden and in Quebec, Canada, had been ineffective. “'It has made absolutely no difference to obesity levels in children,”' she said. “When families are watching together then they can make a decision on how often those foods should be part of a diet,” Ms Carnell said.
Boyd Swinburn, the director of the World Health Organisation's collaborating centre for obesity prevention at Deakin University, said industry self-regulation had done “virtually nothing” and junk-food companies had run multimillion-dollar campaigns to “undermine the healthy eating campaigns from NGOs and health promotion organisations.” Professor Swinburn said a copy of the blueprint had been given to the federal Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, but he believed the junk-food industry had proved a powerful lobby group so far. He dismissed criticisms that the measures could be seen as “nanny-statism”.
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