SubscribeFrance: Food Ads Must Have Health Warnings
French authorities have issued new guidelines for food advertising. The new guidelines will affect advertisements on television, radio, billboards and the Internet for processed, sweetened or salted food and drinks.
Here are the warnings:
- "For your health, eat at least five fruits and vegetables a day."
- "For your health, undertake regular physical activity."
- "For your health, avoid eating too much fat, too much sugar, too much salt."
- "For your health, avoid snacking between meals."
Do people take those warnings seriously?
More like this in Media Watch
What France needs is a "for your health, quit smoking" campaign...
ReplyI really doubt anyone would care if they saw those warnings. It's like the Surgeon General warnings on cigarettes - no one really pays attention to them.
ReplyWho buys Doritos and figures "These are healthy"? Most people that buy junk KNOW it's junk. A warning isn't going to do anything at all to curb consumption. Those people that would care are already probably avoiding these foods to begin with. It's the same with the warnings on cigarette packs...the same mentality. Tobacco companies figure smokers already smoke and know it's bad for them; the warnings are just there to make the public feel better about the tobacco industry.
Replypowerpuffin: Since February the 1st, all public places, restaurants and bars are non-smoking in France too.
(And not everyone smokes, it's about 33% of the population against about 20% for north america. It's bad but not as bad as americans picture it!)
Reply33% must in real life feel like everyone is smoking everywhere. Here, it is 24%, but it feels like I can't be anywhere but in my own home without people smoking in my face. I can't walk 2 blocks to the gym without passing by 3 smokers and breathing their foul smoke.
So I guess the moral here is, a single smoker can bother a whole lot of people.
ReplySpectra, you'd be surprised how many people don't realise that what they're eating is junk. I had a friend who would eat McDonald's/KFC/Burger King food once or twice a week, and also eat lots of pudding and fries at home - she thought she was eating well, her idea of healthy food would be rice and pasta - and she'd have a lot of that, not realising that it can be fattening when eaten in excess.
She'd see me eating vegetables and fruits and healthy meals and she'd assume I had a eating disorder, lol.
She was recently at my house and she looked at my food cupboard and she was like 'hmm, nuts, they has a lot of vitamin C and protein... prunes, a lot of protein, ryvita, a lot of protein... girl, you eat super healthy.' And then I realised she knows very little about nutrition.
Not everyone knows just how awful junk food and fast food is. For them, really bad food would be lard, the deep fried Mars bar, fizzy drinks... thats about it.
ReplyI can beat that...
New Zealand is considering banning fatty foods at eye level in supermarkets to cut down on impulse purchases.
ReplyTalia: it makes sense. I guess it's the same in every country, but here when you wait at the cashier, you have with an arm distance the fridge with sodas and candies. You're bored, you're more likely to buy.
I kind of agree that people should be responsible, dadadidada, but we shouldn't under estimate the power of all these things in shops' layout made to make us buy, to tempt us. Same with advertising. It takes to be really aware, critical and have a good resistance to constant temptation not to fall for any of the marketing/advertisment tricks.
Reply