Ballarat Community Health backs push to get junk food off screen

Last week the Australian Medical Association issued a statement urging the federal government to place a ban on junk food advertising, alongside a tax on sugary drinks. 

“Eating habits and attitudes start early, and if we can establish healthy habits from the start, it is much more likely that they will continue throughout adolescence and into adulthood,” AMA president Dr Michael Gannon said. 

“Children are easily influenced, and this marketing – which takes place across all media platforms, from radio and television to online, social media, and apps - undermines healthy food education and makes eating junk food seem normal.” 

About 27 per cent of children throughout Ballarat are classified as overweight or obese, while data released in late 2016 showed western Victorian adults were the fourth most likely in the country to tip the scales above their recommended weight. 

The Primary Health Network data which was collated across 2014 and 2015 showed 70.1 per cent of western Victorian adults were overweight or obese, well above the national rate of 63.4 per cent. 

Ballarat Community Health prevention and system development director Katherine Cape said regulatory intervention as well as behavioral changes were needed to cause genuine reductions to obesity throughout the region. 

“To really have a chance of tackling obesity we have to go on a multi-pronged attack,” Ms Cape said. 

“We work very hard to try and encourage healthy eating and make it easy to make healthy choices but unless we get some sort of changes to marketing, the number of fast food outlets and a potential sugary drinks tax we can only make a small change in the picture.”  

Ballarat MP and opposition health spokesperson Catherine King said urgent action needed to combat to scourge and “Labor went to the last election with $300 million plan to tackle obesity and chronic disease”.