MPs back fresh curbs on "misleading" formula milk marketing claims

A Scottish National party MP has received unanimous Commons backing for new legislation to curb “misleading and scientifically questionable claims” around the marketing of formula milk for babies.

Alison Thewliss introduced her proposal, which has cross-party support, via the 10-minute rule in the House of Commons on Wednesday. After gaining parliamentary approval with no opposition, she can now bring a draft bill for legislation governing the marketing of replacement breast milk products into line with World Health Organisation policy for a second reading before parliament in February.

Although the WHO introduced an international marketing code more than 30 years ago to prevent aggressive practices in formula milk promotion, the UK has never fully implemented it.

Thewliss, MP for Glasgow Central, said legislation was needed to tackle a legal loophole that allows “scientifically questionable” claims about the health benefits of formula milk to be printed in reputable medical and nursing journals.

Thewliss said: “I believe it is vitally important that parents get accurate information on the contents of formula milk, and the best way to prepare it safely. At present there is a worrying lack of independent scrutiny of infant and young child formula, as well as growing frustration about the industry marketing tricks and misleading claims being pushed on parents and health professionals alike.”

The move, which is backed by the chair of the Commons health select committee, the Conservative Dr Sarah Wollaston, has also drawn support from midwives.

Gillian Smith, director of the Royal College of Midwives Scotland, said that, as an MP for a city centre constituency where breastfeeding rates were low and health outcomes poor, Thewliss was to be congratulated.

Smith added that the UK as a whole continued to have higher rates of formula feeding than many other European countries. “I do think adverts for follow-on milk do influence mothers. We are not bad at initiating breastfeeding, but not so good at sustaining it, and there is a significant drop-off by six months,” she said.

While the benefits of breastfeeding in protecting infants from infection and diseases have been shown in countless clinical trials, there are still many instances when formula milk may often be safer or help to resolve nutrient deficiencies.

Thewliss insisted she came to the debate “with absolutely no judgment or attempt to tell other parents how to feed their children”.

She said: “I understand there is a genuine and sincere requirement for infant formula milk for mothers who can’t or indeed don’t wish to breastfeed, and any number of circumstances which lead parents and carers to choose formula.”

MPs back fresh curbs on "misleading" formula milk marketing claims

Curbs on junk food ads No 1 priority in fighting childhood obesity, says study

Dramatic curbs on the advertising of junk food and drink to children is the policy measure that will be most effective in reducing the growing epidemic of childhood obesity, according to a group of more than 70 health experts.

The Food Foundation group calls for a ban on TV advertising of unhealthy food and drink up to the 9pm watershed and on sponsorship deals between companies that produce them and sports events like the Olympics. The recommendations come after complaints the government’s recently published childhood obesity strategy did not go far enough.

Anna Taylor, executive director of Food Foundation, a thinktank which led the year-long study, said: “While it is good to see concerted action by the government on reformulation of processed foods, we must, at the same time, take action to help our children eat fewer processed foods.

“Parents are fighting a losing battle if their children are being constantly bombarded with advertising which idealises fast food. Other countries have managed to control this. Why can’t we?”

Children are targeted in front of family TV programmes like The X-Factor and in their bedrooms and outside with friends via cyber games and Facebook ads on their smartphones, say experts.

Modern digital technology allows customised advertising, so that ads for snacks pop up at moments of heightened excitement for a child playing an online game, while McDonalds restaurants feature as important locations in Pokemon Go in Japan.

The 73 leading health and obesity experts from 41 organisations will say in a report to be launched in parliament next week that greater control of advertising and sponsorship by companies selling unhealthy food and drinks is the No 1 priority if the UK is to bring down the soaring obesity rate.

At present, advertising of foods described as high in fat, salt or sugar are banned in programmes predominately watched by children. But the experts will argue for greater restrictions, including a ban on all forms of non-broadcast advertising of these food and drinks to children.

The latest figures from the school measurement programme shows that one in five children in England is obese in year 6, the last year of primary school. One in three is either overweight or obese.

Experts are blaming high levels of advertising for soaring rates of childhood obesity. Photograph: McCrickard/REX Shutterstock

The experts have assessed the evidence for a large array of policies from around the world to develop England’s first food environment policy index, a measure of the effectiveness of the actions governments are taking. A similar index has already been published for other countries.

The next priority on the experts’ list is the nationwide implementation of the sugar tax by 2018. The third priority is an ongoing effort to reduce the sugar, fat and salt in processed food. Britain gets credit for the sugar tax, which is the number two policy on the experts’ list and will be brought in across the UK in 2018, and also for the work to reduce the sugar, fat and salt content of processed foods, which is third on their list.

But controls on advertising and sponsorship are even more urgently needed, say the experts, who include academics such as Profs Susan Jebb and Mike Rayner from the University of Oxford, Simon Capewell from the University of Liverpool, Corinna Hawkes and Geof Rayner from City, University of London, and Harry Rutter from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Dr Tim Lobstein of the World Obesity Federation, a member of the expert panel, said food companies and advertisers would put up strong resistance to the changes, adding: “We know they will use any means to weaken and undermine such measures.

“We need stronger regulation to prevent secret lobbying, private political funding and pro-business bias at the heart of government”.

The Obesity Health Alliance, a coalition of more than 30 organisations, said: “The food and drink industry wouldn’t spend billions of pounds each year on advertising and marketing if it didn’t work. We know that the pester power of younger children and the spending power of teenagers is influenced by what they see on TV, the internet and on their phone.

“Failing to tackle junk food advertising is a failure to acknowledge the very real effect the environment has on our children’s habits and ultimately, obesity rates.”

Public Health England, which was commissioned by the government to review the evidence to inform its obesity strategy, found that in 2014, the food industry spent £256m promoting “unhealthy” products sold in retail alone. One of its key recommendations was to “significantly reduce opportunities to market and advertise high sugar food and drink products to children and adults across all media including digital platforms and through sponsorship”.

But the government ignored PHE’s advice. The childhood obesity strategy, launched after much delay this summer, omitted any mention of advertising or sponsorship by the fast food industry, such as occurred in the UK Olympics with Coca Cola and McDonalds.

At a childhood obesity summit last week, Richard Dobbs, a senior partner at the management consultancy firm McKinsey’s, which produced a major report on the interventions that are likely to help reduce obesity in November 2014, said broadcasters had lobbied against advertising curbs on junk food to children being included in the government’s obesity strategy. “Media restrictions were going to cost ITV £500m,” he told the meeting. “It is not surprising ITV fought this quite hard.”

The World Health Organisation’s Europe office recently warned of the increasing sophistication of digital advertising and called on all countries to take action to block the promotion of unhealthy food and drinks to children. Its report described the use of smartphone games and social media platforms to access children.

“Taken together, the creative tactics and analytics … equate to a brand appointing a personal marketer to each child, locating and identifying those who are most susceptible to their messages, encouraging them to send marketing messages to their friends, and following them throughout the day, at moments of happiness, frustration, hunger and intent, delivering advertising with the maximum impact, and directing them to the nearest place to buy foods to ‘fix’ their current emotional state.”

The Committee of Advertising Practice launched a consultation on restrictions on the non-broadcasting advertising of food and drink to children, including online, in May and is expected to report next month.

How others are tackling obesity

Other rich countries have taken bold measures to face up to the obesity challenge.

Canadian province of Quebec took a tough line on advertising to children as early as 1980. All ads for food products as well as toys aimed at under-13s were banned from all types of media, including radio, television, the web, mobile phones, printed materials, signage and promotional material.

Experts think it paid off. French speaking families in Quebec were 19% less likely to eat fast food compared with those living in Ontario and spent 46% less on fast food, according to a household expenditure survey in 2007. Quebec has the lowest rates of childhood obesity in Canada.

France opted for a “soda tax” which, despite lobbying from industry,was imposed on drinks with added sugar and also with artificial sweeteners in January 2012. The tax of around 11 cents per 1.5 litres of drink, raises around €400m (£344m) a year. Soft drink sales dropped by 3.3% in 2012 and 3.4% in 2013. The French treasury is now considering whether to introduce a tax on fatty foods.

Sweden has taken action on school meals, with legislation in 2011 requiring them to be nutritious and free. The nutritional quality of the meals, calorie content and portion sizes are laid down for each age group. Water and milk are the only permitted drinks.

Schools and local authorities can evaluate the meals through a website called SkolmatSverige (School Food Sweden), where there are also questionnaires for the pupils and staff who eat the lunches.

Scotland is planning to introduce a good food nation bill, with a consultation in 2017. It promises to address procurement, waste, health, education and social justice. Groups are lobbying for farming and fishing to be included too.

Curbs on junk food ads No 1 priority in fighting childhood obesity, says study

Delay to curbs on toxic shipping emissions "would cause 200,000 extra premature deaths"

A push by the shipping and oil industries for a five-year delay to curbs on toxic sulphur emissions would cause an extra 200,000 premature deaths from lung cancer and heart disease, according to an unpublished International Maritime Organisation (IMO) study.

Fatalities from illnesses such as asthma were not covered by the leaked paper, which was based on shipping satellite data and modelling work.

The shipping industry is by far the world’s biggest emitter of sulphur with SOx levels in heavy fuel oils up to 3,500 times higher than those in current European diesel standards for vehicles. A single large cruise ship can reportedly burn as much fuel as whole towns, and emit more sulphur than 7m cars.

At the end of October, an IMO meeting in London will decide whether to cap the sulphur content of shipping fuels by 2020 or 2025. Current levels can reach 3.5% but the cap would limit them to 0.5%.

The 2020 deadline faces fierce resistance from the oil and gas industry association, IPIECA, and Bimco, a global shipping group, which argue that there is not enough low-sulphur fuel available to meet the global demand that the measure would spur.

The EU has thrown its weight behind 2020, unilaterally imposing the new IMO standard from then. With China enforcing similar emissions control zones, the new benchmark for 2020 is thought likely to pass, although the US and large flag states’ positions remain wildcards.

James Corbett, one of the report’s lead authors, told the Guardian that any slippage on the 2020 start date risked grave consequences.

“An IMO policy implemented on time in 2020 could reduce the health burden on coastal communities, particularly in Asia, Africa and Latin America,” he said. “The inverse is also true. A delay would ensure that health impacts from sulphur emissions persisted in coastal communities that are exposed, where shipping lanes are most intense and communities most densely populated.”

Egypt, Panama, Japan, India, Singapore, the Philippines and China would be among the countries hardest hit, Corbett added.

Sveinung Oftedal, Norway’s lead negotiator at the IMO, said that domestic health concerns had now overtaken fears about the acidifying effects that sulphur has on Scandinavia’s lakes and rivers.

“Air pollution from shipping is not just a local or regional, but a global, problem,” he said. “The question is whether we can really continue to accept its effects, and the answer is: no, we cannot. The 2020 deadline is needed and it is achievable.”

But resentment in the beleaguered shipping trade is unmistakeable, and a sign of future fights to come in the IMO over shipping’s CO2 emissions, which roughly equal those from aviation.

“Most shipping companies are not turkeys voting for Christmas,” an industry source said. “They’re under the impression that a decision to delay to 2025 would be of collective economic benefit. In the real world, shipowners are bleeding money. There is total depression in the industry.”

Thousands of container ships belonging to Hanjin, south Korea’s biggest shipping firm, were left adrift on the world’s oceans carrying a £14bn cargo, after the firm filed for bancruptcy last month.

The International Chambers of Shipping (ICS) says that imposing the new benchmark in 2020 would cost industry an additional $ 50-100bn a year, owing to the cost of low-sulphur fuels.

Ships today mostly run on cheap blends of the residues and remainders left over from the refining and distillation of crude oil for aircraft jet fuel and automobile diesel.

Bimco argues that a premature move to low-sulphur fuels could have knock-on inflationary effects for other fuels, as increased diesel demand overwhelms supply.

Lars Robert Pedersen, Bimco’s deputy secretary-general, told the Guardian: “Quite frankly, if the IMO decides to ignore these very concrete facts, ships will start to use other fuel streams and there will then obviously be a shortage in those streams and a potential disruption in the flow of energy to supply world markets.”

Corbett estimates the total cost of the measure at $ 30bn, compared to a value of seaborne trade approaching $ 5tn in the South China Sea alone. Supporters of an early sulphur cap say that its effect on commodity prices such as shoes or bananas would be little more than a few cents.

Crucially, a second IMO report seen by the Guardian finds that enough refineries will be available in 2020 to guarantee the future availability of a low-sulphur fuel supply for all the world’s ships.

“In all scenarios, the refinery sector has the capability to supply sufficient quantities of marine fuels with a sulphur content of 0.5% m/m or less … to meet demand for these products, while also meeting demand for non-marine fuels,” it says.

A capacity shortage in 2020 would be the only grounds for IMO delegates to delay the proposal, under its terms of reference, which some fear could then be extended indefinitely.

In a reflection of differing opinions in the sea freight trade, the ICS is neutral on the timeline for phasing out sulphur, while calling for a speedy resolution of the issue.

The oil industry too is ambivalent. One analyst with close knowledge of the issue said: “Major oil companies such as Shell and BP don’t have a problem with a move to cleaner fuel in the shipping sector because they have advanced refineries which could sell higher value fuels and increase their revenues and potentially, their profits.”

Later this month, a global CO2 data collection system for ships will be launched. Neither shipping nor aviation firms are covered by the Paris climate agreement, although the ICS has called for the UN’s climate pledging system to be extended to the industry.

Delay to curbs on toxic shipping emissions "would cause 200,000 extra premature deaths"