Obesity Policy Coalition calls for legislation to tackle childhood obesity

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In early May 2011 the Obesity Policy Coalition (OPC), a body formed through the partnership of  the Cancer Council Victoria, Diabetes Australia – Victoria, VicHealth  and the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention at Deakin University released a ‘Blueprint’ which outlines their opposition to the advertising of “unhealthy food” to children.

The OPC’s central recommendation is that government act now to legislate against the advertising of “unhealthy foods” to children in an effort to curb worrying childhood obesity trends.

According to the Blueprint, up to one in four Australian children is now estimated to be overweight or obese, and failure to act will lead to a myriad of health problems as well as significant economic costs for individuals, families, the community and Australian governments in the near and long term.

The OPC advocates, as part of a ‘multi-strategy approach to addressing the childhood overweight and obesity problem in Australia’, that legislation be enacted to regulate all types of unhealthy food advertising that is directed to children, or to which children are likely to be exposed in any significant way. Short of drawing up model legislation the OPC has sought to set parameters for what the legislation ought to address and to define certain key terms to be included in any legislative action.

In the view of the OPC there are two possible legislative approaches that may be taken. These are:

1. ‘General’ legislation, preferably Commonwealth, designed to impose a prohibition against ‘publishing’, ‘broadcasting’, displaying or otherwise communicating an ‘unhealthy food advertisement’ that is ‘directed to children’, where each of those terms are defined carefully. This approach is analogous to the Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Act 1992 (Cth), which ‘imposes a general national prohibition against all forms of publication or broadcast of tobacco advertising’.
2. ‘Specific’ legislation to prohibit advertisements which involve ‘indirect promotion’ of foods to children, such as through competitions, free samples, fundraising or sponsorship, retail product placements or in product packaging designed to appeal to children. In the view of the OPC such an approach would avoid the need for case-by-case assessments of whether individual advertisements are directed to children, and provide ‘greater clarity and certainty as to the application of legislation’.

Accordingly, the OPC recommends that some combination of both general and specific legislation be pursued.

A centrally important aspect of the OPC’s legislative agenda is that the laws should prohibit the advertising on television of unhealthy food products and brands during times when ‘significant numbers and/or a significant proportion of children are likely to be watching’ and during G classification periods which are designated as times for children’s programming. The time periods in which restrictions would apply are weekdays from 6am to 9am and 4pm to 9pm. Further, the proposal suggests that the ban during weekends and school holidays run from 6am to12pm and 4pm to 9pm.

The OPC recommends that any such legislation be regulated by an administrative agency that is independent of industry and that is given a range of enforcement powers, including the power to seek significant penalties for breaches and to ensure that the legislative framework is regularly reviewed and evaluated to ensure that it is effective and responsive to changes and trends in the food, food advertising and media landscape.

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