childhood obesity is a problem in Ireland and I agree out of sight out of mind but ultimately parents feed their children not the tv.

It’s a good thing except for the cheese. not long ago the government was going to give us free cheese what ever happened to that great idea???

I strongly believe that all advertising based towards children should be banned.
Children don’t have buying power, these ads only lead to children demanding what they have seen on TV from their parents.

it is a good thing to bring in a code for adverts based at children, but this is only for irish broadcasters, how many homes have sky, ups or freeview sat they are going to be watching channels that will not have codes in place I can’t see it making that much of a differnce most kids watch nick or disney channels they are the ones that need to change their way of advertising at children to make a noticable change.

Sounds good. 25% of broadcasting time is a bit much. Maybe restrict the times more so when children are watching tv.

It is well-intentioned but completely misguided. The demonization of healthy saturated fats is not supported by science. The lipid hypothesis is becoming widely accepted as bad science — it was based on observational data that mistook correlation for causation. The Cochrane Collaboration — the gold standard of meta-analysis — says there is no evidence to support it. But still, health authorities drone on and on about it. Now we are taking away cheese from the kids. We have a moral panic about an issue that has no scientific evidence behind it.

The real issue here is the rate of carbohydrate intake (in particular sucrose and fructose) and all the evidence points to this. It’s time health authorities here got up to speed on what is happening at the leading edge. And it’s time too to give healthy fats a break and to demonize the real problem — sugar. “Sugar is fueling a global obesity pandemic, contributing to 35 million deaths annually worldwide from non-communicable diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer” — http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2012/02/11437/societal-control-sugar-essential-ease-public-health-burden

A good primer on this is US endocrinologist Dr Robert Lustig’s now famous lecture:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

It is unethical to use children to pressure their parents into buying a product. Advertising time on children’s television could be used for health and educational purposes.

About time the con artists of the food industry were controlled.

This is about ‘products’. And products need to be controlled if they are produced with only taste in mind.

I fully support our right to protect our children from excess sugar, salt and other additives being marketed as some fun and exciting and convenient ‘food’.

As Paul says above, the idea that all fats, even all saturated fats are bad was based on a single study in 1955 (I think) and had no effective controls built into the experiment. Trans-fats (man-made) are certainly bad but Whole milk, for instance contains a lot of healthy saturated fats that the body need for proper development in enzyme production yet there is this concept that low-fat milk is somehow better.

Healthy eating is more about intelligent choices and moderation. Cheese is good, chocolate is good, in moderation. Nuts are good, even salted but too many are bad. Its high time that nutrition was taught in primary schools.

Way too far. Can’t contain health or nutritional claims? Or include promotional offers?

If you’re forbidden from telling your customers the good things about your product while health agencies are allowed say every bad thing under the sun that’s propaganda. (ok don’t want to make it sound like a government conspiracy, but it’s not fair)

And promotional offers encompass everything from price reductions to multipacks, children aren’t interested in the notion of buy one get one free or 25% off, only the product contained in the ad.

If all advertising is banned who’s going to pay for children’s broadcasting?

I agree though… But it should be pressuring manufacturers to cut the sugar/fat content of their products rather than stop advertising them

The one thing the article/legislation lacks is a definition for HSHF foods…