UK to limit junk food advertising to tackle high levels of childhood obesity

The ban was supported by Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party. (representative)

London:

The UK is banning junk food advertising online and on daytime TV to combat childhood obesity, sparking criticism from the political right that it is a “nanny state” intervention.

The measure was included in the Labour manifesto that gave Keir Starmer’s Labour Party a landslide victory in July and will be introduced on October 1, 2025, the government said on Thursday.

The announcement comes after Starmer promised radical reforms to the crisis-hit National Health Service (NHS), particularly with a greater emphasis on prevention.

Health Minister Andrew Gwynn said in a written statement to Parliament that more than one in five children in England “are overweight or obese when they start primary school” at the age of four or five.

By the time they are 11, that number is more than a third, he added.

“These restrictions will help protect children from exposure to advertising for less healthy foods and drinks, which evidence suggests influences their dietary choices from an early age,” she said.

Advertisements for very fatty, very sweet or very salty foods will be banned on television and entirely online before 9 p.m.

The ban was backed by Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party, which cited its own issues with weight gain, but was postponed to give manufacturers in the sector more time to adapt.

Other members of the political right, however, criticized the measure as an attack on individual liberties.

Among them was the Tory-backed Daily Mail, whose front-page headline on Friday read “Nanny Starmer bans junk food ads ‘to save NHS’”.

“Keir Starmer yesterday ushered in a new era of the nanny state by unveiling plans for an early ban on junk food advertising,” he added.

The Labour government is planning further interventions to reduce pressure on the health system, such as banning high-sugar, high-caffeine energy drinks for under-16s.

The Centre for Young Lives, a children’s think tank, on Friday called on the government to “ignore nanny state critics and expand the sugar tax, ban the sale of energy drinks to under-16s and introduce a nationally supervised toothbrushing programme in schools.”

(Except for the headline, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and appeared on a syndicated channel.)