New food standards: Protect and don’t apologise

NEW standards controlling how gambling, e-cigarettes, and food are advertised and promoted, especially food advertisements aimed at children, come into force today.

Champions of a tooth-and-claw free market will see this as an unwarranted intrusion by a nanny state into business. Others, possibly of a more pragmatic and conscious bent, will see these rules as a welcome assertion of social imperatives over commercial objectives. They put individuals’ wellbeing before an opportunity to generate a profit.

The body of research showing how poor diet is one of the driving forces behind the growing obesity epidemic suggests we should be far more assertive and less apologetic about imposing controls on those food and drink companies whose commercial ambitions make them blind, or indifferent, to the consequences of their actions.

Equally, the international research showing a significant link between sports sponsorship by drink companies and increased alcohol consumption — even among schoolchildren — can hardly be ignored for much longer. Plans to control if not veto sports sponsorship by drink companies were shelved during the lifetime of the outgoing government after extensive lobbying from sports and drink interests.

As ever, the objective must be to protect public health and allow a free choice but we should not be apologetic about giving a red card to industries that threaten our health.