It's not junk food and it's never about the children

With the government seemingly minded to crack down on the advertising of junk food to children, it's worth remembering that is isn't 'junk food' and it is never about the children.

As I say today at Spectator Health...

In the public’s mind, ‘junk food’ is synonymous with American fast food chains, an impression reinforced by the media’s tendency to illustrate every story about it with a picture of a burger. If McDonald’s has to wait until 9pm to tell us about their new limited edition bacon burger, it seems a relatively trivial encroachment on freedom.

But ‘junk food’ has no legal definition. The nearest equivalent is HFSS food – food that is deemed to be high in fat, sugar and/or salt. For the purposes of advertising regulations, Ofcom uses a definition of HFSS food that encompasses a much broader range of products than the colloquial term ‘junk food’ implies.

They use a fiddly and rather puritanical system known as the Nutrient Profile Model which condemns almost everything except raw food and health food. The model was devised by our old friend Mike Rayner who literally believes that God told him to bring about a sugar tax in Britain. All the obvious stuff gets a black mark under Rayner’s model: pizza, crisps, biscuits, confectionery, milkshakes and sugary drinks. It also rules out lots of products that are not typically considered to be ‘junk’ but which can be expected to get caught up in a system that focuses on sugar, salt and fat: ice cream, clotted cream, jam, marmalade, honey, bacon, pretzels, salted peanuts, sweetened fruit juice, smoothies and most sausages.

But then there are the foods that hardly anyone would consider ‘junk’ but which still fail the test: cheese (including half-fat cheese), raisins, sultanas, soy sauce, mustard, most tinned fruit, most yoghurts, most breakfast cereals (including high fibre varieties), peanut butter, Marmite, mayonnaise (light and regular), tomato soup, most cereal bars, many pasta sauces, all butter, fat spreads and olive oil.

All of this and more will be treated like soft porn if the campaigners get their way.

Do read it all.