WE SAY

Could we mentally conjure up some soothing background violin music as we consider the following statement? ‘‘Food advertisements should not undermine food or nutritional policies of Government, the Ministry of Health, food and nutrition guidelines, nor the health and well being of children.’’

Such is the purring of the New and Improved code for advertising for children, agreed by our selfregulating advertising industry.

So that’s nice. Especially since as things stand we’re the third fattest of 33 OECD countries. And tracking, as speedily as we can without getting puffed, towards having almost one third of our under-18 year-olds classed as obese or overweight by 2025.

Hang on, say the voices of personal responsibility. Let’s not lazily blame the sellers of legal products for exercising their legitimate commercial freedoms. Especially since the problem is clearly one of poor parenting.

Granted, there is such a thing. But there’s also a massively resourced industry out there making it really hard for parents. The latest research suggests that some of our kids are encountering 27 junk food advertisements a day.

The national health stats are alarming. We’re losing the sugar wars. Badly.