proposed uk restrictions on advertising food to children
The Guardian’s story on the UK media regulator’s (Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom) proposals about restricting the advertising of food to kids is here. The full report is available here. Here is an excerpt from the proposals:
The aim of the revised advertising standards would be to reduce the level of hildrens emotional engagement with food and drink advertisements. In summary,
food and drink advertisements must avoid anything likely to encourage poor nutritional habits or an unhealthy lifestyle in children;
advertisements for food and drink must not advise or ask children to buy, or ask their parents to buy, the products. There must be no appearance of encouraging children to pester others to buy the products on their behalf;
promotional offers (including collectables and giveaways) in food and drink advertisements must not be targeted at children under 10;
food and drink advertisements must not encourage children to eat or drink the product only to obtain a promotional offer;
celebrities must not be used in food and drink advertisements whose content is targeted directly at children under 10. This would prevent advertisers from drawing on the authority and trust that children might vest in these characters;
licensed characters must not be used in food and drink advertisements whose content is targeted directly at children under 10. This would prevent advertisers from using licensed characters (e.g. film or cartoon characters) that might make it difficult for younger children to distinguish between programmes and advertising;
advertisers would remain free to use brand characters (that is those solely associated with a particular brand) on the grounds that they do not carry the same authority as licensed characters;
nutrition claims must be supported by sound scientific evidence, and must not give a misleading impression of the health benefits of the product as a whole;
no nutritional or health claims may be targeted at pre-school children (under 5 years); and
advertisements must not condone or encourage excessive consumption of any food or drink.
These provisions would apply also to sponsor credits. Government sponsored or endorsed healthy-eating campaigns would not be exempted from these rules.
I absolutely agree with this. I think that child obesity is a problem (justifiable under Art 28 Public Health concern, as it leads to other problems like child diabetes, etc.)…I also think that this measure satisfies proptionality because mandatory gym classes won’t combat the problem if children are consuming processed sugars all the time; the objective surpasses obesity & transcends into over-all health and healthy eating habits. As I said in class, advertisers will be SAVING money as a result…and this gives them incentive to find healthier ways to be competitive in the market.
Although it seems like a good idea in terms of health, all but one of the excerpts suggest that even ads promoting healthly eating habits could be restricted as well.