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Curbing advertising will cut obesity
Ian Oliver
The Australian
September 06, 2008
THERE'S an old observation that bureaucracies dislike
acting without precedent -- which might sound sensible,
until you realise it sets up an institutional resistance
to doing anything for the first time. Restrictions on
junk food advertising to children are a bit like that.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority, in
its draft report on children's television standards,
says food advertising restrictions would not reduce
childhood obesity, as the evidence is "quite modest" and
the "research is limited".
But when so few governments are willing to introduce
tough measures to address escalating obesity rates, an
agency whose main stakeholder base is commercial
broadcasters and advertisers may find it easy to dismiss
the evidence as "modest". This is despite encouraging
early evidence from places that have introduced
advertising restrictions -- such as Sweden, Norway and
Quebec in Canada.
The UK also restricted junk food ads last year as part
of a groundbreaking effort to improve that nation's
health, but it is too early to adequately gauge
effectiveness.
So the "research is limited"?
If so, that's partly because food marketing reform is
often derided as "nanny state" policy, making it
difficult to incontrovertibly show that it works.
(Aren't nannies meant to protect children anyway?)
Yet one of the best Australian studies available,
Victorian Government research that rigorously modelled
13 interventions aimed at reducing adolescent obesity,
found advertising restrictions to be the most
cost-effective measure by a long margin.
Meanwhile, governments in South Australia and Queensland
have released discussion papers seeking community views
on restricting junk food ads targeting children. These
governments have clearly seen enough in the "modest
evidence" to seriously consider food marketing reform as
part of the solution to childhood obesity.
For the food industry to dismiss the South Australian
and Queensland governments' leadership on this issue as
"quick political fixes" is simplistic. It's hard to
imagine these governments putting the powerful food
industry offside, unless they felt compelled to act.
And with last week's Access Economics report showing
that obesity costs the Queensland and South Australian
health systems $391 million and $147 million
respectively, is it any wonder these governments are
getting serious about encouraging healthy nutrition in
children?
If this amounts to no more than "modest evidence" and
"limited research", let's turn the equation around.
Australia has seen an enormous growth in the
sophistication, diversity and saturation of junk food
advertising pitched at children, coinciding with an
unprecedented increase in childhood obesity.
Industry interests say there is no correlation, that
advertising does not influence consumption. Would the
industry seriously pour $200 million per year into ads
if they didn't increase consumption?
Australian children are exposed to an extraordinarily
high volume of junk food advertising by global
standards. We are the world's fifth-fattest nation, with
a quarter of our children obese or overweight.
Addressing a problem of this scale requires more than a
single quick fix of any kind. It needs a comprehensive,
long-term national approach. More targeted research,
biometric monitoring, social marketing, community-based
programs that improve access to healthy food and
opportunities for adequate physical activity.
Integrating all of these is essential to reducing
childhood obesity. All would fall well short of their
potential if they were not supported by reforms limiting
the overwhelming concentration of television advertising
encouraging unhealthy behaviour, particularly among
children.
Government social marketing to reduce obesity -- which
at present is all but non-existent at the national level
-- is no match for multi-million-dollar industry ad
campaigns encouraging the consumption of foods high in
fat, sugar and salt.
More than 30 years ago we had a similar debate about
tobacco advertising. Broadcast tobacco ad bans,
beginning in the mid-1970s, coincided with a measurable
decrease in smoking rates. As part of a comprehensive
approach to tobacco control, advertising reform saved
more than 17,000 lives.
While junk food in moderation is clearly not harmful in
the way tobacco is, the sheer scale of the obesity
crisis means we must deal with it in the same way we
curbed smoking rates. Australia can already expect a 30
per cent increase in cancer incidence every decade until
population ageing peaks around 2047 -- and that doesn't
include the impact obesity will have on the cancer
burden.
And while we can't accurately predict the real future
cancer burden we face, with obesity a significant cause
of breast, colon and four other invasive cancer types,
we can assume it will be big.
Professor Ian Olver is chief executive officer of the
Cancer Council Australia
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