Why junk food ad bans won’t fix Australia’s obesity problem |
Every few years, a familiar policy reflex returns: ban advertising and hope the problem goes away.
The UK has now pushed ahead with new restrictions on food and beverage advertising, framed as a decisive blow against childhood obesity. Predictably, the question is already being asked here: why hasn’t Australia followed suit?
The short answer is simple — because the evidence simply does not support it.
Advertising bans have not reduced obesity anywhere they have been introduced around the world. Not in the UK, not in Quebec, not in Chile. In some cases, obesity rates actually increased after the bans were introduced. That’s not ideology, it’s data.
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The uncomfortable truth is that these policies target a visible scapegoat rather than the real drivers of poor health outcomes. They focus........