Legislation banning unhealthy food and drink advertisements is urgently needed if Government officials are serious about tackling the rapidly developing obesity crisis among Irish children, the Irish Heart Foundation (IHF) has said.
The State’s voluntary code of practice for advertising and marketing junk food and non-alcoholic drinks, introduced four years ago, is “too weak” and just “creates a facade of legislation when children are completely unprotected”, IHF director of advocacy Chris Macey said on Thursday.
“We had a commitment in the Programme for Government in 2020 on this issue; it is now urgent that we have legislative action in the Public Health (Obesity) Bill to protect children’s health,” said Mr Macey, adding that there was “no urgency” among senior Government officials on this issue.
“It’s completely slipped off the priority list since Covid. The daily bombardment of junk food marketing is intensifying and we have a commitment to a Bill but no action on it.”
The new IHF ‘Stop Targeting Kids’ campaign, which launched on Thursday, should prompt the Government to follow the UK and legislate to protect the next generation from diet-related disease, said the foundation.
The restriction on advertising junk food and drink before 6pm must also be extended to 9pm to protect young people from overexposure to unhealthy food marketing, it said. This move is supported by four out of five people in Ireland based on a recent Safefood Ireland study, it added.
Research carried out by Safefood in 2017 found more than 85,000 children will die prematurely due to childhood obesity and being overweight, while a 2018 study from the Cork Institute of Technology found one in seven Irish primary schoolchildren had high blood pressure.
More recently, research carried out by the UK’s National Child Measure Programme recorded obesity among 10 and 11-year-olds rose 21 per cent between 2020 and 2021.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic this was a crisis, now it’s a catastrophe, Mr Macey told The Irish Times. The consumption of unhealthy food rose during lockdowns, children exercised less in schoolyards and played less sport, and young people spent “vastly more time on social media where they’re targeted by food marketing groups”, he said.
The Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022 offers a “small chink of light” for advertising bans to be implemented, but the onus lies with the department and Minister for Health to fully address this problem, said Mr Macey.
Legislation must be published by the end of 2022 to protect the health of younger generations, he said. “We don’t know of any greater threat to the health of this generation of children – 85,000 of them are going to die prematurely and not enough is being done.”
“The depth of feeling in Ireland over junk food marketing means that our Government simply cannot ignore it any longer. The health of our children, including their future health, is something that matters to us all.”
Asked to comment on the calls for legislative change around junk food advertising, a Department of Health official said the Government was currently co-leading a “work package” under the EU’s joint Best ReMaP action (Best practices in Reformulation, Marketing and public Procurement) which aims to reduce the marketing of unhealthy food to children and teens.
On broadcasting, the official said rules around programming, advertising and sponsorship were contained in the Children’s’ Commercial Communications Code (CCCC) which was reviewed by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland in 2020. The Department of Health will “certainly contribute” to an updated consultation of CCCC when it happens, she added.
