New nanny state health laws being introduced by Wes Streeting will ban television and social media advertising of junk food – including crumpets and porridge.
The Health Secretary is on a mission to crack down on childhood obesity, which he said is “robbing our kids of the best possible start in life”.
Yet while unhealthy foods such as chips, fried chicken and pizza are targted, the rules unusually include better foods such as muesli, granola, porridge oats and Greek yoghurt.
Yet sausage rolls, pork pies and pasties will still be legal to advertise to children on television, because savoury pastries have a blanket exemption from the amount of sugar they can contain.
The Government’s own impact assessment said the legislation will reduce children’s exposure to junk food adverts by an average of nine seconds a day.
The Institute for Economic Affairs’ Chris Snowdon said: “We will soon be living in the only country in the world where sponge puddings, croissants and yoghurts are considered too dangerous to be advertised online and can only be shown on TV when young children are in bed.
“This is the most preposterous, puritanical government meddling and shows that this policy was never about so-called ‘junk food’ at all.”
Mr Streeting insisted: “Obesity robs our kids of the best possible start in life, sets them up for a lifetime of health problems and costs the NHS billions.
“This Government is taking action now to end the targeting of junk food ads at kids, across both TV and online.
“This is the first step to deliver a major shift in the focus of healthcare from sickness to prevention, and towards meeting our Government’s ambition to give every child a healthy, happy start to life.”
