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.