Child obesity fuelled by junk food ads on Google, Facebook and YouTube, health campaigner warns
MPs were told our strict advertising rules are a 'shocking sham' that are failing to stop internet giants pushing bad diets on youngsters
CHILDHOOD obesity is being fuelled by junk food ads on Google, Facebook and YouTube – despite a ban on kids being targeted.
MPs were told our strict advertising rules are a “shocking sham” that are failing to stop internet giants pushing bad diets on youngsters.
Items deemed high in fat, salt or sugar cannot be promoted on any media popular with children under advertising rules.
But health campaigner Dan Parker, head of charity Living Loud and a former ad exec, told the Commons Health Committee they fail to cover our top 50 websites.
And he called for junk food marketing to be treated like porn – with no screenings before the 9pm watershed.
Mr Parker told an inquiry on childhood obesity: “This code does not include Google or any other search engines. It does not include YouTube. It does not include Facebook or Twitter.
“If you take the list of the top 50 websites in the UK, not one of them is covered by this code.
“What it does is stop junk food advertising on websites likes Disney, Nickelodeon…who to the best of my knowledge they have never run this kind of advertising.
“It is a shocking sham.”
He added: “Under what circumstances is it ok to market junk food to kids?
“If you talk about porn or sex or violence, the other things we don’t want our kids to see on telly…we don’t have it on before 9pm because we don’t want our kids to see it.”
But ad bosses told the Commons Health Committee that marketing plays almost no role in promoting childhood obesity.
Stephen Woodford, head of the Advertising Association, said their content is only responsible for two per cent of the problem.
Asked if he though ads were an issue, he said: “No I don’t. Advertising has a small impact on food preferences, but it has even less impact on overall diet and it has even less overall impact on obesity.”
One in three kids now leaves primary school too fat – with the poorest faring worst.
Being too heavy raises later chances of type 2 diabetes, heart, liver disease and several common cancers.
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Professor Russell Viner, from the Obesity and Health Alliance, said only a quarter of telly watched by youngsters is children’s TV – meaning the majority is unregulated.
He told MPs that GPs should routinely weigh toddlers in a bid to warn parents if they are piling on too many pounds.
Oxford Professor Susan Jebb, the government’s former obesity tsar, said Brits should pay at the pump to avoid getting fat.
She said: “When I do talks on obesity talks one of one of my top ten tips is pay at the pump, don’t go into the kiosk and people really get that.”