Reacting to the AoMRC’s report Measuring Up – The Medical Profession’s Prescription For The Nation’s Obesity Crisis, the representative body for advertisers expressed its concern that of the 10 recommendations to tackle obesity, only one of them involves medical intervention. One is about improving health care and the rest are political or social interventions.
Number seven calls for a TV advertising ban before 9pm for all food high in saturated fats, sugar and salt (HFSS) together with an ad ban on internet programming of TV-like content.
Ian Twinn, ISBA’s director of public affairs, said: “Obesity is real and a cause for concern, but the medics appear not to have looked at the evidence in calling for ad bans; instead they have used it as an excuse to grandstand.
“The medical colleges assert that there is evidence that ad restrictions are effective against rising obesity, the trouble is that the evidence does not exist.”
Twinn repeated his call for the medical professions to look at the evidence and to work together with government and business to shift eating and exercise patterns through the Responsibility Deal.
Source: ISBA
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