UK to ban junk food ads before 9pm

The government has confirmed that it plans to introduce a 9:00 pm watershed for junk food advertisements in a bid to tackle the childhood obesity crisis and ‘raise the healthiest generation of children ever’.

Answering in a recent parliamentary Q&A, Labour MP Ashley Dalton said the government is with the implementation of the advertising restrictions for less healthy food or drink products on television and online, which evidence shows are the media that children engage with the most.

“The restrictions include a 9:00 pm watershed on television and a 24-hour restriction on paid-for advertising online, and are expected to remove up to 7.2 billion calories from children’s diets per year,” she said.

Dalton confirmed that the plan would be limited to online and TV adverts, and that sports events will remain unaffected for now.

“We have no current plans to ban the sponsorship of sports events by food brands associated with less healthy food or drink products, or ban the advertising of less healthy food or drink products at sports events.

“We continue to review the evidence of the impacts on children of less healthy food or drink product advertising, and will consider where further action is needed,” she said.

New rules for supermarkets

This week government unveiled new healthy food standards for businesses in the UK in a bid to tackle the country’s growing obesity problem.

Announced as part of the UK’s ten-year health plan, this change will require large retailers such as supermarkets to meet a new standard to make the average shopping basket of goods sold slightly healthier.

Supermarkets and other businesses will be allowed to meet the standard in whichever way works best for them, but they will be required to report to the government on healthy food sales.

The government will then work with the Food Strategy Advisory Board to create and roll out targets to increase the healthiness of sales across the UK.

Measures supermarkets could take to meet the new healthy food standards include reformulating products and recipes, changing shop layouts, offering discounts on healthy foods, or changing loyalty schemes to promote healthier options.