Education and Broadcasting Minister, Steve Maharey and Health Minister Pete Hodgson have agreed with major television broadcasters on a new five-point plan aimed at improving food advertising to children.

The plan will make it easier for parents and children to recognise healthy food and make better choices.

The voluntary agreement was proposed by the New Zealand Television Broadcasters' Council (NZTBC), representing CanWest TVWorks (TV3 and C4) and Television New Zealand (ONE and 2).

"The whole of our society has a responsibility to address obesity, as it is perhaps the most serious public health issue facing New Zealand. I am delighted that our two biggest free-to-air television companies support the Government’s Healthy Eating Healthy Action and Mission-On strategies," said Pete Hodgson

"Working to improve nutrition and become more physically active, and creating environments that make it easier for children to be healthy, has gained a huge amount of momentum in the last year. We can be proud of this whole of society approach but as always we need to do more. The broadcasters have come to us with a willingness to be part of the solution."

The Chairman of the NZTBC, Brent Impey and CEO of CanWest Mediaworks said that the both CanWest and TVNZ are committed to make significant advances in advertising, funding and programming to help fight obesity.

Brent Impey said a key result of the agreement is recognition that public health and industry approaches to addressing obesity need to work side-by-side if we are to be effective in making sustainable improvements in children’s and families diets. He said “we recognise that we have a valuable contribution to make in addressing obesity in New Zealand.”

Education and Broadcasting Minister Steve Maharey welcomed the agreement aligning new food and nutrition guidelines just introduced in schools, with television advertising. He said that free-to-air television was showing good initiative in actively working with food advertisers to help address obesity, especially amongst children.

The five point agreement is to:

1/Provide free commercial airtime to the Health Sponsorship Council social marketing campaign aimed at improving children’s healthy nutrition – to the value of $0.5 million per annum for the remaining two years of the programme.

2/Introduce a new 'Getting It Right' guide to children’s television advertising which includes a new Children’s Food (CF) rating. Only food products that receive this rating will be able to advertise in programmes directed at children.

3/Work closely with Sports and Recreation New Zealand (SPARC) in the production of television programming aimed at improving diet and exercise practice of children.

4/Provide training for advertisers and agencies in the new Getting It Right guide which is related to the Ministry of Health’s food classification system and the Codes for Food and Children approved by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA)

5/Participate in the government consultative group on food advertising which will include monitoring of food promotion. The Ministry is developing an approach to monitoring television advertising of food and beverages. It is intended that high fat, sugar and/or salt food and beverages (HFSS) and low fat, sugar and/or salt food and beverages (LFSS) will be covered and that they will be categorised according to the Ministry's food and beverage classification system. The monitoring will provide information on the nature and extent of food advertising on television, how the composition of this advertising has changed over time (indicative time frames 2003 to 2010), and the New Zealand population’s exposure to advertising of HFSS and LFSS food and beverages. This will have a particular focus on children and young people's exposure.

Rick Ellis, CEO of Television New Zealand, said this comprehensive strategy would ensure that New Zealand children were getting clear, relevant and appropriate information about food during their special programme zones on the mornings and afternoons. He said that New Zealand television had been a world leader over ten years ago in refusing to allow TV advertising in programming for under 5 year olds and this latest move would ensure advertising aimed at older children would be more in line with principles of healthy eating.
www.sparc.org.nz/education/mission-on