Tony the Tiger and Ronald McDonald are safe for another year. Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell has given food manufacturers a reassurance, as we report today, that she has no intention of outlawing TV food advertisements aimed at children.

For Labour to bring in an outright ban on food commercials during children's viewing time might lead to accusations of 'nannying'. But the rising number of obese children, and the epidemic of disease obesity brings in its wake, is so serious that doing nothing cannot be an option for a Government which has put the nation's health at the heart of its priorities.

Ten years ago, the battleground was over tobacco advertising. Now the fight has moved to food, and in particular, products packed with fat, sugar or salt, but also packaged as fun and cool. On an average Saturday morning, a child will watch 64 food commercials, the vast majority for fizzy drinks, cereals, and sweets.

Some MPs have argued that an outright ban is not necessary - food advertising should be removed only from the viewing times of pre-school children. But it is not until children are 12 or 13 that they really possess the critical faculties necessary to discriminate between good and bad food. And the advertising industry says it already has to meet a strict regulatory code dictating what can or cannot be said in commercials. But no TV advertisement to date has spelt out that its product contains more than 40 per cent fat.

The very least that Labour should do now is to instigate a full-scale review into the influence food commercials have on children's diet. We were once promised 'joined-up government'. There is little point in one branch of that government spending £40 million a year on a healthy eating campaign if another sits back and allows advertisers to sell fat, sugar and salt to the most impressionable audience of all.