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Anorak News | Battle Of The Bulge

Battle Of The Bulge

by | 13th, October 2004

‘TIMES, they are a changing – and, where in the past a red triangle in the corner of our TV screen used to promise some good old-fashioned smut, now it’s a health warning.

‘Any porn on the other side?’

Or it soon will be under proposals which will force adverts for junk food to carry a ‘red light’ warning sign and only allow them to be shown after children are in bed.

The Times says the Government will release a white paper on public health later this year in an attempt to tackle the obesity epidemic in Britain.

And it is likely to include a traffic light system of food labelling, with sugar, salt and fat content ranked from red (high) to orange (medium) to green (low).

Enoch Powell famously remarked that all political careers end in failure – by the same token, all governments end up in parish council politics.

John Major may not have had a big idea when he came to power, but he had no idea by the time he left, reduced as he was to sitting by the phone and waiting for the Cones Hotline to ring.

And, whereas Tony Blair has spent his first two terms in charge trying to remake the country in his grinning image, he is content to spend the third trying to get Britain’s kids to eat their greens.

‘We will look carefully at measures that protect young children from pressures to make unhealthy choices – such as those from excessive advertising of foods high in sugar, salt and far,’ the Prime Minister said earlier this week.

Note the use of the word ‘excessive’. The Times says the Government won’t ban such adverts completely or go the way of other EU countries and stop children taking crisps to school.

However, it will probably set up an obesity watchdog – Offal – and introduce a whole heap of targets that food companies are expected to reach.

Hell, it might even restrict the flavours of crisps children are allowed to carry. Monday is salt and vinegar, Tuesday is smoky bacon…’



Posted: 13th, October 2004 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink