Commercials for obesity-causing food to be restricted
By Lee Kyung-min
The government will ban TV commercials for junk food and sugary drinks from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., during which time most children’s shows air, as part of a campaign to tackle child obesity. In a meeting presided over by Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon, Tuesday, the Cabinet approved a revision to the law governing food safety for children.
The revised law will ban both terrestrial and cable broadcasters from airing commercials for “obesity-causing” high-calorie and low-nutrient foods including fast food, sugary confections and highly caffeinated beverages. However, the government fell short of specifying the names of the foods or products subject to the ban.
The measure comes amid the growing number of children suffering from obesity over the past few years. According to 2017 data from the Korea Centers for Disease and Prevention (KCDC), about 16.5 percent of elementary, middle- and high-school students were obese in 2016, up 4.9 percent from 11.6 percent in 2007. One out of five ate fast food at least three times a week. Less than 20 percent of the boys participated in more than one hour of physical exercise at least once a week, and only 7.5 percent of the girls did.
The number of young obesity patients in Korea is significantly higher than the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) average, posing the risk of developing other health complications, according to an expert.
“In a 2014 report, the number of adult obesity patients in the country was lower than the OECD average, but that of young obesity patients was steadily rising,” said Chung So-chung, a pediatrician at Konkuk University Medical Center in Seoul during a media briefing at the KCDC last November.
Those children, she added, are much more likely to develop health complications including hyperlipidemia, an abnormally high concentration of fats or lipids in the blood, as well as metabolic syndrome _ a cluster of conditions that increase the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes. “Limiting caloric intake and maintaining a regular workout should be the two most important goals of anybody suffering from obesity. They should also be mindful about restricting media exposure that reinforces a distorted body image and interferes with choosing healthy food,” she added.
The government move also comes amid numerous studies that have found the correlation between exposure to TV commercials and the likelihood of choosing food of poor nutritional value are strongly linked. In a study led by Dartmouth University in the U.S. published in the journal Public Health Nutrition, of 548 parents with children aged between two and 11, those who were exposed to fast food TV commercials were about 30 percent more likely to choose such foods than those who were not. The study reported that children were unable to distinguish commercials from regular programs and were much more likely to follow the subliminal messages to choose such foods as a result of strong, persuasive appeals constructed by ad producers. In 2009, it added, the fast-food industry spent more than $580 million (618 billion won) on child-targeted advertising for TV.