Businesses shouldn’t be able to promote harmful foods to children, the head of the Non-Communicable Diseases Commission said Thursday as a childhood obesity prevention campaign rolled out to schools.Declaring the launch of the School Nutrition Policy in 2023 was arguably a success for the group and doctors who have pushed for years to cut the number of sugary drinks in schools, Bulbulia said more needs to be done to address the daily advertising of unhealthy foods and drinks to children.He told reporters: “One of the concerns that we have with the school nutrition policy being rolled out, is that constant direct marketing to young people, to children, of unhealthy foods and snacks. It is something that is addressed in our school nutrition policy, but not yet a major [piece of legislation]. I would like to see that as major policy; we don’t direct alcohol and tobacco ads to young people, that is forbidden in our society.“Unhealthy foods and snacks should also fall into that category because that is causing untold disasters in our society and our people as they grow older. We find that there are earlier onsets of diabetes and NCDs that are coming on, so we want to see now that the policy expands itself into other areas of making sure that our young people are safeguarded from unhealthy foods and snacks.”
