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Ofcom, independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries announced recently a decision to enforce a total ban on advetising for junk food in and around all programmes of appeal to those under the age of 16.
An original proposal had suggested the regulation might target only the under-9-years group. With the greater age range, the ban will now include youth-oriented and adult programmes deemed likely to appeal to children, as well as the obvious children's channels. The content of such ads will also be regulated to ban the use of celebrities and cartoon characters.

Of course, there has been a great hue and cry raised in response. It's easy enough to imagine the protests being spluttered about by the ISBA, the representative body of marketing communicators in the UK. They proclaim their mission is "defend advertisers' freedom to advertise". Their homepage declares that membership with them is open to all through an annual subscription "based on a small proportion of their advertising spend". Since current estimates place the impact on total broadcast revenues at 39m per year, it's not too much of a challenge to put all that together and see why they have come out in opposition to the ban, denouncing it as being "influenced by political opinion." The impact on their membership fees is, of course, the last thing on their noble, collective mind.
At the other end of things is the National Heart Foundation. Paul Lincoln, chief executive of the NHF says that, "The UK currently has the highest rates of child obesity in Europe." Present trends in England would see half of all children being obese by the yeay 2020. One in ten six-year-olds are already classed as obese. These facts make it easy to understand why the NHF and many other health organizations wanted the ban to cover all programming until nine o'clock in the evening. Keeping in mind the fact that childhood obesity is being called epidemic in the western world, the events that transpire in the U.K. should be of interest to many.
The junk-food industry sees only their short-term profits lying on the line. They don't seem to see any of the longer-term issues. Those children they're pushing their garbage at right now will grow up to be adults; quite possibly adults with a whole range of health problems stemming from their obese childhood. Do these advertising types give any thought to the strain on health-care systems a whole age cohort of sickly adults could impose? The

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