Hey Brit Kids, Watch This and Click Here
A British law against showing ads for so-called “junk food” to kids on the telly is writhing in defeat, apparently, due to something called Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, a popular TV show in which ads play a central role. The problem, as the whining nannies see it, is that, though it’s an adult show, kids like Ant and Dec, too, and so the show should be relegated to showing only ads for celery, watercress, or barley.
A ban was introduced in January on adverts for foods high in salt, sugar or fat during programmes whose viewers were mainly under the age of 16. It did not, however, affect the programmes with an audience mainly made up of adults, even though many more children watch them.
Among the programmes affected was the children’s cartoon SpongeBob Squarepants, which attracts about 170,000 child viewers. But Saturday Night Takeaway, a family show watched by more than a million children, was not.
New research has concluded the number of times children watch junk-food adverts during these family programmes has risen in the past two years by 26 per cent. The figures come from Dr Will Cavendish, director of health and wellbeing at the Department of Health, who described the trend as “worrying” at a time when almost a third of 11-year-olds are classified as overweight or obese.
In a report to the Westminster Food & Nutrition Forum, Dr Cavendish said ministers could take tougher action. “We know large numbers of children are still seeing TV ads for high fat, sugar and salt food and drink, though in programmes not specifically aimed at children,” he wrote.
The figures will fuel calls for a total ban on junk food ads before the 9pm watershed. A private member’s Bill to that effect, introduced by the Labour MP Nigel Griffiths, will receive its second reading this month. It aims also to create “significant restrictions” on marketing on the internet.
Restrict this. And this, this, this, and this. More here.
When it Comes to Kids and Ads, Fast Food Companies Can’t Win
Companies advertising in Canada have voluntarily agreed not to show unhealthy foods in ads targeting kids. If that sounds voluntary and fine enough it’s because it is. Naturally, not everyone is happy, led by so-called health advocates.
Elizabeth Frank, a dietitian in Lunenburg, N.S., looked over the company commitments and welcomed the initiative.
“With the amount of time children spend watching TV and the misinformation there is in there, I think it’s about time they started to concentrate on good nutrition,” she said.
In the case of McDonald’s, the company said its advertised meal aimed at children under 12 will contain no more than 600 calories, no more than 35 per cent of calories from fat, 10 per cent from saturated fat and 25 per cent total sugar by weight.
Its advertised meal for kids under 12 will either be four-piece McNuggets with apple slices, caramel dip and one per cent milk; or a hamburger meal with the apples and milk.
[...]
Frank said some of the amounts are still “pretty high” in the McDonald’s meal.
“The amount of fat and sugar could be lower, as far as I’m concerned,” she said.
“And 600 calories for a 12-year-old child … that’s a lot of calories in one meal. That would be more than they would get, say, if your mother made you a sandwich, and gave you an apple and milk to take to school. You wouldn’t get as many calories, and you would get a healthier meal of it.”
Skim milk and apples your mom gives you have less calories than the same stuff at McDonald’s? Really? On the other hand, does it take a dietician to conclude that fast food is generally not as healthy as what mom packs in a lunchpail? Uncanny, that Ms. Frank is.
Fat foes are like any other nannies — give them a voluntary inch and they’ll grunt and moan until some asinine legislator takes up their cause.
More here from the Canadian Press.
Note: Blogged from the bar at RFD.
