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Will banning all junk food ads end the obesity crisis?

Posted in Advertising, Marketing, Mel Varley, Latest reporters' blogs March 20th, 2008 by Melinda Varley

It’s been just over a year since the ban on all advertising of foods and drink high in fat, sugar and salts came into place – but the debate lives on and we still don’t have any real answers on how to tackle the obesity epidemic.

The debate is still two sides with the advertising industry still needing to meet their targets and the rest of the UK trying to find a solution to put an end to fat kids.

But is a total ban on all advertising of HFSS foods the answer?

A total ban would result in a loss of our freedoms and freedom of choice, according to Nick Bampton, managing director, Viacom brand solutions (speaking at the Westminster Food and Nutrition forum). I think that the more that people try and tell you not to do something, the more likely you will be to do it.

It baffles me that instead of finding probable solutions to the obesity problem, the charities, campaigners and health organisations are just trying to ban advertising of ‘bad’ food, ultimately blaming the advertisers and not even the producers of this kind of food.

Like Patrick Barwise, Emeritus professor of management and marketing, London Business School, pointed out, we don’t enjoy junk food because we saw an advert for it and if there was no advertising of chocolate, we would still seek to find it.

Is society that stupid that we just buy everything that is advertised and we actually have no idea what is good and bad for us?

People smoke although they know it’s bad for them and despite the fact cigarettes can not be advertised we still smoke.

There is a huge ongoing debate about underage drinking at the moment – however, alcohol can not be advertised to kids under the age of 18 – but there is still 10 year old turning up at A&E every Friday and Saturday night smashed off their faces on alcopops, cheap wine and vodka.

A complete ban would not stop the obesity problem, maybe we should ask sports store to advertise more, fruit and vegetable producers to advertise more, exercise, gyms, ads for local sports teams!  

The sad fact of all this though, is that no matter how many images of skinny, fit and healthy we see in the magazines, in the movies and on TV, rather than people asking and wondering how they can be like that, they complain that the world is obsessed with skinny people.

This makes me wonder, does the general public of the UK want to stop obesity or have they just come to accept it?

To read mad.co.uk’s related news story click here or to read other blogs by Melinda Varley click here.