The new law which came into force on January 5 bans advertisements for junk food and drinks from television before 9pm and online at all times.
The UK government predicts this will remove up to 7.2 billion calories from children’s diets each year, preventing an estimated 20,000 cases of childhood obesity.
Over time it is also expected to result in savings of billions of pounds. It is estimated obesity costs the National Health Service (NHS) more than £11b annually.
Like New Zealand, the UK has been facing rising childhood obesity.
The National Health Service says at the start of primary school, 22.1% of children in England are living with overweight and obesity, rising to 35.8% by the time they leave.
Tooth decay is the leading cause of hospital admissions among young people aged 5 to 9.
By 5 years old, one in five UK children have tooth decay because of excess sugar consumption.
The advertising moves are part of the UK government’s plan to halve childhood obesity by 2030.
Other parts of the strategy include removal of high-calorie foods from checkouts, industry targets to reformulate unhealthy products, the sugar tax on soft drinks (to include sugary milk-based drinks in future) and allowing local councils to stop fast food shops opening outside schools.
It will be no surprise to anyone familiar with the behaviour of the food industry on issues of public health, there has been fierce lobbying around the changes to the marketing of junk food to children and there has been watering down of what was originally proposed.
Public health advocates are also critical of the failure of the new law to restrict outdoor advertising or the ability of fast food outlets to market their wares through sports sponsorship.
It has been noted, in the build-up to the television and online bans, there has been increasing spending by food companies on billboards and posters on places such as bus shelters.
The Transport for London network banned this type of advertising from 2019 and, although research showed this was effective, this has not been instigated nationwide.
It has been reported cash-strapped local authorities are being tempted to allow the food industry to advertise on council-owned property.
Here, could we see similar temptations for local authorities faced with rates caps and ever increasing costs and a government with disdain for the idea councils should be concerned about people’s wellbeing?
On the positive side, at least the UK is doing much more than New Zealand.
Here, there has been considerable research into the amount of junk food advertising our children are exposed to, but while the Advertising Standards Authority has a code covering marketing to children, compliance with it is not mandatory.
Our obesity statistics are just as dire as the UK’s, with more than one in three New Zealand adults considered in the obese category (the third-highest rate in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) and one in eight children affected.
These numbers are significantly worse for Māori and Pasifika people.
It is estimated illnesses related to obesity cost the health system $2 billion a year and the economy an estimated $9 billion in lost productivity.
But successive governments have chosen to approach this burgeoning problem in a piecemeal fashion, reluctant to move beyond the idea what we eat and drink is a personal choice, as if being surrounded by advertising for rubbish food and drink from an early age will have no impact on those choices.
Schools are not even required to have "water only" policies.
Since it is election year, we can expect public health advocates to be putting the pressure on political parties to step up in this area.
However, we doubt whether their impact will beat lobbying from the industries keen to preserve the status quo.
