Focus on advertising as child obesity fight continues

As the Health Ministry focuses on reducing the growing problem of child obesity in this island, it is taking a closer look at the advertising of local companies aimed at younger audiences.

Speaking in Parliament on Friday, Minister of Health John Boyce said that as the roll out continued of a program to reduce this worrying trend, it was critical to ensure that all were involved in pushing this island’s population to be a healthy one.

“There are a number of fast food agents, who provide some form of gifts for our primary schools especially, but I am afraid that some of the advertisements associated with the book covers et cetera, are not acceptable to the Ministry of Health given our programs on childhood obesity,” the minister said.

He therefore said that his ministry would be seeking to mitigate the impact of these advertisements and push healthier foods.

“So as we roll out our strategy on childhood obesity over the next couple of months, you can expect that we will be challenging these representations that are not part of this program,” he stressed.

Vendors outside of the school gate will not escape the health ministry’s regulations either, he added, insisting that healthier options must be provided for the nation’s children.

“This kind of regulation must also attend to the vendors who provide snacks in and around our schools and again, we will have to get our vendors to understand that their offerings must lead to the kind of healthy standards that is associated with a healthy population,” he stressed. (JMB)