More than a dozen organisations representing Australia’s advertising, marketing and media industry have welcomed a government report on obesity which called a for a community response to the obesity issue.
The informal group of organisations was happy with the conclusions drawn by the report ‘Weighing it Up – Obesity in Australia’ from the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing.
The organisations include the Advertising Federation of Australia, Australian Marketing Institute, Commercial Radio Australia, the Media Federation of Australia, and the Australian Food and Grocery Council, among others.
The report called for better urban design to encourage people to be active and a greater focus on teaching children the importance of healthy eating and exercise, as its main recommendations.
Importantly for these organisations there was no call for any ban on advertising, though there was a recommendation for developing better public health campaigns about obesity and the benefits of healthy lifestyles.
The statement from the industry grouping echoes that of Scott McLellan, chief executive of the Australian Association of National Advertisers (also part of this informal group), as covered in B&T Today (2 June).
The industry organisations said: “The committee’s report was generally supportive of industry self-regulation, but saw merit in conducting further research and aligning with peak industry groups to develop new initiatives to combat obesity in Australia.”
It also welcomed the call for research into the effect of food advertising as a means of better understanding the relationship between ads and food consumption.
