Junk food and sugary drinks are taking an enormous toll on people particularly children, health activists and doctors have warned as they demanded warning labels and a law to ban advertisements of junk foods.
They said that given that one in 4 adults is obese, diabetic or pre-diabetic; rapidly increasing childhood obesity and that unhealthy junk food is alarmingly killing more people than tobacco, it is now important to have effective legislation to curb the menace.
“India faces a severe public health crisis of obesity and diabetes. As the 2023 ICMR-INDIAB study shows there are 100 million cases of diabetes and 1 in every 4 individuals is either suffering from diabetes or is pre-diabetic or obese.
The Government had set a target to halt the rise of obesity and diabetes by 2025, which seems nowhere in sight, the experts added.
“Existing regulatory policies remain ineffective to minimise any advertisements of junk foods, which are mostly misleading and especially directed at children and adolescents,” said Dr Arun Gupta, Convenor of NAPi, the national think tank on nutrition policy.
Citing report “The Junk Push: Rising Consumption of Ultra-processed foods in India- Policy, Politics and Reality”, which was released on Friday, he said that it was worrisome that there are evidence from 43 junk food advertisements, which is just the tip of the iceberg.
“These advertisements commonly relied on celebrity endorsements, emotional appeals, unsubstantiated health claims, and targeted children. None of the advertisement provided the “most important information” as demanded by the Consumer Protection Act 2019, for a food product, the amount of sugar, salt, or saturated fat in it,” as per the report.
