Junk food advert ban will have little effect, conclude researchers

Published on Wednesday 27 May 2009 21:59

A BAN on advertising junk food during children's television programmes will likely have little effect, according to researchers.

A first study of food advertising aimed at children found just 5 per cent of those shown in the UK would have been banned.

Researchers found adverts for junk food were no more likely to be shown during children's programmes than other times.

The research by Newcastle University academics, published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, studied 2,315 food adverts in Canada and 1,265 in the UK.

It revealed the common belief that TV advertisers target children with unhealthy foods before new Ofcom regulations were introduced in 2007, was not true.

Growing rates of overweight children in developed countries is a global concern.

An international study last year revealed Scotland has the second highest obesity rates of any nation on earth, coming behind only the United States.

New regulations came into effect in the UK in 2007 to prohibit adverts for less healthy foods during or around programmes "of particular appeal to" children.