Politicians and campaigners have condemned the action plan to fight child obesity put forward today by the nation's food safety watchdog as "not tough enough" and warned that it will fail.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) met today in London to finalise proposals for the government, schools and the food industry to help curb the rising weight of youngsters.
The FSA chairman, Sir John Krebs, said: "Children are bombarded with messages that promote food high in fat, salt and sugar. The evidence shows that these messages do influence children. Eating too much of these foods is storing up health problems for their future. The Food Standards Agency wants healthier choices to be promoted to children."
Yet critics believe its draft action plan does not go far enough in devising measures for enforcing good practice among food producers and advertisers and setting up helpful and realistic labelling terms.
The initiatives set out in today's strategy include developing guidelines for the food industry to reduce the amount of fat, sugar and salt in foods and agreeing guidelines for health labels on food. The scheme suggests the FSA name and shame companies that do not follow guidelines.
Other points of action include working with schools to get healthier options onto canteen menus and into campus vending machines.
Celebrities, including sports stars and popular TV and radio performers, would be called on to promote healthy foods.
The draft plan, however, does not propose a ban on junk food advertising during children's television programming. The FSA opted for the softer language of advising the broadcast regulator Ofcom and the advertising industry to "address the imbalance in TV advertising of food to children".
The Liberal Democrats' health spokesman Paul Burstow described the draft action plan as "a step in the right direction" but said "it isn't tough enough to attack the root causes of the nation's expanding waistlines. The question the FSA has to answer is how long it will be prepared to wait before recommending a more interventionist approach.
"Pursuing the voluntary route first and promoting personal responsibility to tackle obesity is the soft option. The FSA will have to ask itself whether it will really make the sort of difference that is now becoming a matter of life and death."
The British Retail Consortium's food policy director, Richard Ali, said: "What we need are policies that encourage consumers to choose a balanced diet. We will continue to caution against any artificial segregation of foods into 'good' or 'bad'. Such wrong thinking has no scientific underpinning and could lead to a further fall in iron or calcium if meat or cheese were targeted."
Charlie Powell, project officer at food and farming campaign group Sustain, said: "Since the FSA first decided to look at this issue in September 2000, most in the junk food and ads industry have systematically objected to any measure which might restrict their capacity to promote junk foods to children.
"The FSA's action plan will fail because industry is not capable of acting voluntarily on this issue. To protect their health, we urgently need statutory controls to prevent companies from promoting unhealthy foods to children."
The most up-to-date figures show 15% of 15 year-olds in England and 9% of six-year-olds are obese - treble the number 20 years ago.
The average child in the UK watches the equivalent of 217 commercials a week. Figures from the FSA show 40% of advertisements during children's TV are for food, of which 70% are for sweets, fast food, breakfast cereals with added sugar, savoury snacks and soft drinks.
