>>we won’t beat childhood obesity by demonising certain foods says FDF DIRECTOR GENERAL sylvia jay
The Food and Drink Federation has been playing a part in a new soap opera - Consultation Street. Over the past few weeks and months we have contributed, either as an organisation or with food chain partners, to no fewer than seven separate consultations covering food and health issues.
Just last week, FDF delivered its contribution to the Food Standards Agency’s consultation on the promotion of food to children. On top of this, we have responded to the main White Paper consultation Choosing Health, as well as its subsidiaries, Choosing Diet, and Choosing Activity. Others include the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs committee food information inquiry and the FSA’s strategic plan.
Much of the debate centres on TV advertising and we await the completion of Ofcom’s review of the current advertising codes of practice, to which we contributed.
Codes need to be workable and tight, and marketing must be responsible, but we strongly believe a ban on advertising to children is neither a proportionate response nor an effective solution to the problem of child obesity. Bans in places such as Quebec and Sweden have not worked.
There has been a gradual if sometimes grudging acceptance of the role of lifestyle and the lack of activity in the obesity equation. Manufacturers’ involvement in promoting and supporting children’s healthy lifestyle initiatives and activities can and do have an enormously positive effect. Involvement ranges from sponsorship of national events such as the London Marathon to support of local community sports clubs. FDF’s Foodfitness programme last year provided an educational CD-rom to every primary school.
An idea becoming more prominent is that obesity can be diminished by defining particular food groups or individual foods as healthy or unhealthy and identified as such by labelling, for example ‘traffic lights’. We believe it is more effective to concentrate on the concept of a balanced diet, based on the premise that an individual’s daily, or more realistically weekly, food intake, should be balanced to include all the minerals and nutrients that the body needs.
No single food can provide all the essential nutrients needed by an individual and foods differ significantly in the nutrients they contain. Cheese is high in fat, calcium, protein and salt but low in vitamin C and
fibre. In contrast, fruit is low in fat, calcium, protein and salt but high in vitamin C and fibre. Together, these two foods can provide a good range and a balance of nutrients. So it is evident why nutritionists are encouraging consumers to eat a wide range of foods.
Therefore it is difficult to see how demonising individual foods with a red traffic light - or even as one commentator suggested a skull and crossbones - will be helpful to consumers, who come in all shapes and sizes and with differing nutritional and even emotional needs.
What role does the food industry have? We can play a part in the solution. Individuals must take responsibility for their own health but they need to have appropriate skills and ready access to information and wide, easily accessible food and health and lifestyle choices. Industry already plays a part in helping individuals make the right choices by providing product information supplemented by websites, care lines and education materials.
Recently we have joined with the rest of the food chain and the advertising industries in proposing to government that, because of the contact and relationship we have with consumers, we are ideally placed and willing to play a valuable role in a government-led multimedia consumer information programme.
We are looking forward to discussing this with ministers. There is a lot that industry can bring to this party.
This summer will see just how far government wants to work with, or constrain, the industry.
The Food and Drink Federation has been playing a part in a new soap opera - Consultation Street. Over the past few weeks and months we have contributed, either as an organisation or with food chain partners, to no fewer than seven separate consultations covering food and health issues.
Just last week, FDF delivered its contribution to the Food Standards Agency’s consultation on the promotion of food to children. On top of this, we have responded to the main White Paper consultation Choosing Health, as well as its subsidiaries, Choosing Diet, and Choosing Activity. Others include the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs committee food information inquiry and the FSA’s strategic plan.
Much of the debate centres on TV advertising and we await the completion of Ofcom’s review of the current advertising codes of practice, to which we contributed.
Codes need to be workable and tight, and marketing must be responsible, but we strongly believe a ban on advertising to children is neither a proportionate response nor an effective solution to the problem of child obesity. Bans in places such as Quebec and Sweden have not worked.
There has been a gradual if sometimes grudging acceptance of the role of lifestyle and the lack of activity in the obesity equation. Manufacturers’ involvement in promoting and supporting children’s healthy lifestyle initiatives and activities can and do have an enormously positive effect. Involvement ranges from sponsorship of national events such as the London Marathon to support of local community sports clubs. FDF’s Foodfitness programme last year provided an educational CD-rom to every primary school.
An idea becoming more prominent is that obesity can be diminished by defining particular food groups or individual foods as healthy or unhealthy and identified as such by labelling, for example ‘traffic lights’. We believe it is more effective to concentrate on the concept of a balanced diet, based on the premise that an individual’s daily, or more realistically weekly, food intake, should be balanced to include all the minerals and nutrients that the body needs.
No single food can provide all the essential nutrients needed by an individual and foods differ significantly in the nutrients they contain. Cheese is high in fat, calcium, protein and salt but low in vitamin C and
fibre. In contrast, fruit is low in fat, calcium, protein and salt but high in vitamin C and fibre. Together, these two foods can provide a good range and a balance of nutrients. So it is evident why nutritionists are encouraging consumers to eat a wide range of foods.
Therefore it is difficult to see how demonising individual foods with a red traffic light - or even as one commentator suggested a skull and crossbones - will be helpful to consumers, who come in all shapes and sizes and with differing nutritional and even emotional needs.
What role does the food industry have? We can play a part in the solution. Individuals must take responsibility for their own health but they need to have appropriate skills and ready access to information and wide, easily accessible food and health and lifestyle choices. Industry already plays a part in helping individuals make the right choices by providing product information supplemented by websites, care lines and education materials.
Recently we have joined with the rest of the food chain and the advertising industries in proposing to government that, because of the contact and relationship we have with consumers, we are ideally placed and willing to play a valuable role in a government-led multimedia consumer information programme.
We are looking forward to discussing this with ministers. There is a lot that industry can bring to this party.
This summer will see just how far government wants to work with, or constrain, the industry.
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