There needs to be more fruit and vegetable advertising to help fight the obesity problem in children, school meal providers were told.
Martin Caraher, reader in food and health policy at City University, London, said children were exposed to an onslaught of advertising of unhealthy products like chocolate, and there needed to be more of a balance.
He told delegates at the Marketing Week Healthy School Meals conference: “The chocolate bar market is worth around £3.4 billion, fresh fruit is worth £3.1bn and I was surprised it was so high. The advertising spend on chocolate bars is around £91 million, fruit is around £2.8m.
“I don’t think we necessarily need to ban adverts for unhealthy foods, but we need to restrict them, and balance them out with healthy food adverts, such as fruit or vegetables.”
He said that fruit eaten as a snack among school children was falling, from 34 per cent in 1999 to 27 per cent in 2003.
“I was surprised it was so high, but a lot of parents put it in their children’s lunch box. However, they buy crisps, but they don’t buy fruit as a snack.”
Children spend around one third of their pocket money on snacks, and he said the consumer groups were getting younger: “Fifty per cent of five to seven year old buy their own snacks, we’ve got children becoming consumers at a younger age.”
He said there was a greater need for regulation around school meals, to ensure a greater balance of health in children’s diets.
“We try and educate, but perhaps we need to regulate. In some scandanavian countries they still regulate around their school meals, and they have much lower obesity rates. You can manipulate children, but that means restricting choice.”
He said their needed to be greater investment from government: “There’s no way we can improve school meals without putting resources in. Schools can’t be held accountable for obesity.
“The best work is happening in Scotland, and they view the extra funds they are putting in as an investment in the children, a cost saving on health bills in the future.”