Children are still being bombarded with television advertisements for junk food, in spite of new rules aimed at tackling the UK's obesity epidemic.
The consumers' organisation Which? today renews its calls for a 9pm watershed for junk food adverts as research shows that 12 of the 20 TV programmes most watched by children under 10 years old are not covered by current rules.
Restrictions are based on the proportion of children watching a programme rather than the actual number. This means that adverts promoting unhealthy foods are not allowed during programmes such as The Simpsons, which has a child audience of 163,200, but are permitted during shows such as The X Factor, which has nearly three times that child audience at 442,300.
There is also a strong similarity between the programmes most watched by older and younger children, with Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, The X Factor, You've Been Framed and Coronation Street coming out as the top five for both groups. None of these programmes are covered by the advertising restrictions and feature numerous adverts for unhealthy foods and snacks.
The Which? analysis of adverts during the programmes with the most child viewers revealed that sweets and chocolate products such as Mars Planets, Kinder Beno, Milky Way, Smarties and Twix are all being advertised. The findings come just week after the prime minister acknowledged the need to curb the promotion of "inappropriate foods".
Which? looked at the official TV viewing figures for ITV1, Channel 4 and Channel Five during the first two weeks of September this year, to reveal which programmes children under 10 and under 16 were watching in the largest numbers. Researchers from the British Heart Foundation health promotion research group at Oxford University analysed the foods advertised during these programmes using the Food Standards Agency's nutrient profiling model. "Less healthy" foods as defined by the nutrient profiling model cannot be advertised during programmes of appeal to children.
The advertising restrictions are already supposed to be protecting children under ten but Which? said it had found many adverts for foods high in fat, sugar and salt, highlighting the limitations of the government's approach. In January the current rules will be extended to programmes with a high proportion of viewers under 16. If those rules applied today, just two of the top 20 programmes would be covered.
Which? food campaigner Miranda Watson said: "This research shows that unhealthy foods are being advertised during the programmes with the highest number of child viewers, such as The X Factor. The only way to shield children from TV ads for unhealthy foods is a 9pm watershed. There is no silver bullet in the fight against obesity. Tougher restrictions on the way unhealthy foods are marketed to children will play an important role in helping parents to instil healthy eating habits in their children."
But Lady Buscombe, chief executive of the Advertising Association, said: "As Which? admit themselves, there is no 'silver bullet' in fighting obesity. The increase in obesity can be attributed to a complex range of interrelating causal factors including changes in lifestyle and diet and social, environmental and cultural factors, as the government's foresight report on obesity recently acknowledged.
"A recent Advertising Association report showed there have been clear and consistent falls in TV food ad spend for the last three years, together with a significant reduction in the amount of food advertising children are watching.
