Junk food ad budget 27 times bigger than cash for healthy eating

JUNK food companies spend 27 times more on advertising than the Government does on promoting healthy eating, experts have warned.

The 18 top-spending crisp, confectionery and sugary drinks brands spent more than £143million last year on advertising their products, according to the Obesity Health Alliance. It dwarfs the £5.2million that was spent on the Government’s flagship Change4Life healthy eating campaign.

Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, Coca-Cola and Galaxy chocolate top a league table of advertising spending, with their owners spending more than £10million each last year marketing those products alone.

Advertising spending by the entire confectionery market in Britain increased by 13 per cent in 2016 compared with 2015.

In a league table of all advertising spending in Britain in 2016, 18 of the top 100 brands were junk food companies.

The Obesity Health Alliance – a coalition of more than 40 health charities – wants the Government to restrict children’s exposure to junk food marketing across all media, including on TV before the 9pm watershed.

The alliance also wants marketing rules extended to cover sponsorship of sports, family attractions and marketing communications in schools.

Spokesman Caroline Cerny said: ‘ Children’s health [is] getting a raw deal. Junk food companies are spending tens of millions a year on promoting their products.

‘Government healthy eating campaigns can’t possibly compete, so it’s not surprising that the cost of obesity to people’s health, the NHS and wider society, is spi- ralling out of control.’ A Government spokesman said: ‘Advertising restrictions in the UK on junk food are among the toughest in the world, including a ban on advertising junk food in children’s media.’

Gavin Partington, of the British Soft Drinks Association, said: ‘ In 2016, soft drinks companies voluntarily agreed not to advertise any drinks high in sugar to under-16s across all media channels.’

The Food and Drinks Federation said: ‘The UK, rightly, has some of the strictest regulation around the advertising of foods high in fat, salt and sugar in the world to ensure children are properly protected.’