The Government has been urged to impose a ban on TV advertising of unhealthy foodstuffs to children.
The call came yesterday from an alliance of more than 30 organisations in the State concerned about the impact on children's health of such advertising.
Michael O'Shea, chief executive of the Irish Heart Foundation, one of the organisations calling for the ban, said children are exposed to the marketing of unhealthy foods "on a massive scale".
He said a European study published in April showed there was a very strong correlation between rising levels of obesity and the marketing or advertising of unhealthy foods.
He also said a study in the Republic of food advertisements on RTÉ Network 2 in September 2002 found 54 per cent of adverts were for foods high in salt, fat and sugar.
There was strong evidence that this resulted in children "pestering" parents to buy certain products for them, he said.
"It is unfair and manipulative to advertise to children too young to understand," he said.
Food companies were also using schools to market products to children, he added, and he called for all schools to be guided by a healthy food policy.
The demands of the National Heart Alliance, which is representative of organisations such as the Food Safety Authority, Ash Ireland, the Irish Cancer Society and various Health Service Executive regions, are set out in a position paper on the marketing of unhealthy foods to children.
Speaking at the publication of the position paper in Dublin, Margot Brennan of the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute, said recent figures showed one in five Irish children between the ages of 5 and 12 years was now obese. This was worse than the European average.
She said practitioners were already seeing children who were developing signs of heart disease, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes.