Marketing junk food to children

Sir, – It’s five years since the launch of the voluntary agreement between the Government and the food industry to reduce children’s exposure to junk food promotion. Five years on, the agreement has not been implemented. Voluntary agreement has resulted in obfuscation and delay.

A recent study in the UK National Child Measurement Programme found that obesity had increased by over 20 per cent in 10 to 11 year olds between 2020 and 2021, aggravated by lockdown conditions leading to less physical activity, and increased time spent on social media, with increased exposure to the online marketing of junk food.

It is not just online.

Wherever children are, junk food advertising confronts them – on television, billboards, buses, shops, supermarkets, sports grounds, through sponsorship of children’s events, on the jerseys of their sports heroes and through promotions by their music idols. There is no escape.

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In June 2020, the Government committed to addressing obesity in Ireland with a Public Health (Obesity) Act including restricting the marketing of unhealthy foods to children. What is needed is mandatory commitment to the phasing out of the marketing and price promotion of junk food. This would result in a giant leap forward in putting children’s health first, providing a global template, as happened with the introduction of legislation on smoking indoors, for countries across the world to do the same.

Time to put children’s health first and ahead of the needs of a profit-driven global food market. – Yours, etc,

Dr CATHERINE CONLON ,

Ballintemple,

Cork.