Nanny state rears head with BAI TV cheese ban plan

The nanny state trying to regulate what we eat is running into problems.

This is no surprise, when a bureaucratic approach is adopted instead of common sense.

For example, when the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland picked a model on which to base their new rules for advertising products which contain fats, salts or sugars, to those aged under 18.

The BAI decided to base the rules on the UK Food Standards Agency’s findings on unhealthy foods.

It now emerges that the UK model is based on children eating 100g of cheese per day. This bears no relation to the average daily intake of cheese reported for Irish children and teenagers, which is only 10g.

As a result, the dairy industry has no problem picking holes in the BAI’s proposed model for food advertising — a model which the dairy industry fears would confuse Irish people who view cheese as a healthy food.

The National Dairy Council (NDC) has thus been able to make a good case for an exemption for cheese from proposed advertising rules, at least until an independent review is undertaken with a view to developing a model more up to date and appropriate to the needs of the Irish population.

The NDC was able to point out that the UK nutrient model picked by the BAI categorises cheese as less healthy than diet cola — even though cheese is an important food to address insufficient calcium intakes amongst Irish children and teenagers.

Other experts, including the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, back the NDC call for changes to the UK nutrient profiling model proposed by the BAI.

Dairy farmers have gone a step further, accusing the BAI of using blatantly biased experts, and pointing out that while obesity in children and teenagers has almost doubled in the last 20 years, their consumption of cheese over the same period remained static, and well below recommended daily amounts.

However, the BAI is not alone among State organisations running into difficulty in tackling the global scourge of unhealthy eating which has led to a dangerous obesity epidemic.

The fast food industry, for example, has run rings around the nanny state, with sales remaining steady through the worst of the economic crisis in the US, and increasing in Britain, France and Japan, while much of the restaurant and retail sectors went out of business.

Obesity now afflicts 34% of the US population, adding an estimated €241bn per year to American healthcare costs.

But the badly needed regulatory pressure from Government agencies has been smoothly deflected by a fast food industry policy of rebranding and reinvention.

Salads and smoothies and revamped menus — described as the nutritional equivalent of green-washing — have been used to maintain sales of fatty, salty, sugary, fried and processed fast food.

In contrast, cheese is a healthy food, and it would be an injustice if broadcasting rules damage its reputation — one which won’t be forgiven by the 34,000 people working in the Irish dairy sector, who generate important foreign earnings from the 90% of Irish cheese which is exported.