Soft drink makers join obesity battle
LOUISE TRECCASI, MEDICAL REPORTER
August 30, 2006 12:15am
SOFT DRINK companies have joined the war on Australia's obesity crisis by moving to ban advertising directly to children and all sugared drinks from schools.
The Australian Beverage Council yesterday unveiled new voluntary guidelines as part of an advertising and labelling policy to be introduced over two years.
Almost all major providers of soft drinks, juices, teas and sports drinks, including Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Bickford's Australia, based in Salisbury South, have signed the Commitment Addressing Obesity and Other Health and Wellness Issues document.
The policy sets out guidelines such as removing all sugar-sweetened drinks from primary school canteens and only supplying them to high schools on request.
Other measures include banning advertising of such products directly to young children or during children's TV programs and re-labelling soft drinks, juices, teas and sports drinks to provide kilojoule content and nutritional information. Diet drinks are not included in the bans.
Adelaide-based dietitian Tania Ferraretto, from Nutrition Professionals Australia, encouraged all food and beverage manufacturers and outlets to provide clear labelling so consumers could make informed choices.
She said a 375ml can of coke contained 40 grams of sugar or eight teaspoons. A 2-litre bottle had 212 grams or about 42.5 teaspoons.
"Soft drinks are not something for everyday and it is not necessary for school canteens to provide soft drinks," she said. "Soft drinks don't provide nutritional value. They provide sugar . . .
"We encourage children to drink water and milk."
Health Minister John Hill welcomed the industry "taking responsibility in some way for rising obesity levels" and said: "This is a good first step and I urge other junk food producers to follow the lead."
Australian Beverage Council chief executive Tony Gentile said the guidelines were developed in response to increasing concerns about childhood obesity.
"Almost 99 per cent of the soft drink market will be covered by the new guidelines," he said.
"We will market our products only to parents so they can make choices and we will also appoint an independent third party to audit our commitments."
Coca-Cola has already said it would relabel its products to include kilojoule content on the front and tell consumers exactly how much a serve of each product contributes to their total daily energy intake.
"The new guidelines formalised for the industry are marketing practices that have been in place at Coca-Cola for many years," a spokeswoman for the company said.
She said Coca-Cola voluntarily withdrew sugar drinks in primary schools in 2004.
Childhood Obesity battle in Australia