After years of wrangling, from this week new rules shield children in the UK from junk food advertisements. Those featuring processed food and drink products in 13 categories – including soft drinks with added sugar, crisps, chocolate and sweets – are now banned online, and can only be shown on broadcast TV after 9pm. In a month already strongly associated with the giving up of bad habits and turning over of new leaves, restraint on the part of advertisers has been made compulsory.
Rising childhood obesity is the reason. Our exclusive report last week, on calls by doctors for children’s blood pressure testing, hammered home the dangers of obesity and the case for preventing it. The longer-term trend, both nationally and internationally, is widely recognised as alarming. Since the national child measurement programme was launched 20 years ago, the proportion of primary‑age children in England who are obese has risen from 17.5% to 22.1% (although since 2020-21, when a record proportion of children were obese or overweight, there has been some improvement).
