Food firms told: end junk food ads or face ban

THE food industry has been given a year to stop advertising junk food to children or face a mandatory ban.

The EU’s Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou has targeted obesity as a major health issue to be tackled Europe-wide.

The latest figures show that half of Europe’s children, including Ireland’s, are now overweight or obese, and the figures are rising.

“One in every four children is obese. This means future health problems,” he said, adding that this used to be an American problem, but now it has become European too.

He wants to adopt a new EU-wide strategy that will cut out promoting junk food to children, and have a health label on food.

Research in Ireland shows that junk food is the most heavily advertised foodstuffs on television.

Mr Kyprianou will launch a healthy eating programme in March with guidelines for the industry which he hopes they will enforce voluntarily.

“I would like to see the industry not advertising directly to children any more,” he said.

The Cypriot Commissioner said he is willing to let the food industry have a go at self regulation.

But he warned if this is not working inside a year or so of being introduced, he will consider bringing in legislation.

“The signs from the industry are very encouraging, very positive. But if this doesn’t produce satisfactory results, we will proceed to legislation,” he said.

He would do this along the lines of that brought in by the former Irish Commissioner, David Byrne, to ban tobacco advertising.

The CIAA, the food industry’s umbrella group in Europe, said it believes voluntary regulation works best. They are working with the commission on the new proposals.

Mr Kyprianou will also spell out a system of labelling food to show its nutritional value which must be “easily understood by a consumer who doesn’t have a PhD in chemistry”.

In Europe obesity is doubling every ten years and in Ireland alone is believed to kill 2,500 people a year prematurely.

Binge drinking is also a growing problem, according to Fine Gael MEP Avril Doyle, who raised the issue with the Luxembourg presidency in the European Parliament yesterday.

Minister for Health, Mars Di Bartolomeo, said the EU needs to devise proper programmes to be implemented nationally to prevent binge drinking.