Every parent needs to learn a small but important word: “No.”
It may be short, but when used correctly and consistently, it is powerful.
Without this, children cannot tell right from wrong.
And yet parents who can say it are rarer than hen’s teeth these days.
Take the government’s shiny new ban on junk food advertising. From October next year, food containing a lot of fat, sugar or salt – such as cakes, cookies, ready meals and chips – will no longer be allowed to be advertised online or on TV before 9 p.m.
The goal is to tackle the growing problem of childhood obesity. Nearly one in 10 children of reception age are now obese, and around 20 percent experience tooth decay by the age of five.
Poor diets combined with other factors, such as a lack of exercise, mean that many of these young people eventually become obese adults – with all the health problems and poor quality of life that entails.
In the long run, of course, they cost the country a fortune in health care and benefits.
Nearly one in ten children of reception age are now overweight
Keir Starmer’s shiny new ban on junk food advertising means foods high in fat, sugar or salt cannot be advertised online at all, or on TV before 9pm
None of this would be necessary if parents learned to say “no” more often: if, instead of taking the path of least resistance, they stood up to their pot-bellied tyrants and refused to give in. No to sweets and soft drinks, no to nuggets and chips, no to takeaways. Not all the time, of course, but most of the time.
But that doesn’t happen anymore. “No” seems to have become a dirty word in parenting. They all have to have prizes – and, it seems, Happy Meals. And so Health Minister Wes Streeting channels his inner Nanny McPhee, and puts us all on the naughty step.
Will it work? The chance is small.
According to the Ministry of Health’s own estimates, these measures are expected to reduce children’s exposure to such advertisements by just 8.9 seconds, resulting in a net reduction of exactly 2.1 calories from their daily diet. As the Mail’s health editor Shaun Wooller pointed out yesterday, that’s less than a tenth of a jelly baby.
The trouble is that there are so many other factors at play. The proliferation of fast food restaurants in the vicinity of schools, for example, or the fact that chips and chocolates are invariably cheaper and more easily available than ‘real’ food.
Many families are too busy, too lazy, or simply too incompetent to cook healthy food from scratch (after all, it has been years since home economics was taught in schools).
The game console has replaced the game field. Add to this the rise of the Deliveroo culture, where all kinds of high-calorie treats are delivered straight to your door in just a few clicks, and it’s not hard to see why our kids are so fat.
None of this really has anything to do with advertising. Junk food advertisements were just as colorful and compelling in the 1970s and 1980s – perhaps even more so given the almost total lack of regulation. Remember the honey monster? Tony the Tiger? The Cadbury’s Smash aliens? Ronald McDonald? But there was no obesity crisis yet.
No, that has been caused by profound cultural changes over decades, and by a fundamental deterioration in societal norms in general. Stopping little Kevin from seeing a Dunkin’ Donuts ad won’t change that.
After all, these harmful foods will still be for sale. At the train or bus station, in the supermarket or convenience store, part of your meal package. And they will remain cheaper than healthier options in many cases – and always much harder to resist. Unless you change these basic things, you will never eradicate obesity.
Ultimately, the only belt-tightening this policy will do will be those of broadcasters, advertisers and similar industries, whose losses, by some calculations, could easily run into the hundreds of millions. Let’s not forget that these are all businesses on which thousands of jobs and livelihoods depend.
But as we have already seen in this Labor government, job losses, especially in the private sector, are not really something to worry about.
You could even argue that Labour’s aim is to limit private entrepreneurship and choice as much as possible (see also private schools, the agricultural tax and the recent increase in national insurance for employers) while at the same time expanding the reach of the public sector expand (repeated wage increases and gold-plated pensions). And if that means state censorship, then so be it.
In that respect, this ban serves Labor’s objectives perfectly.
It bashes exactly the kind of people this government likes to bash, broadens the reach of the Nanny State, limits individual choice – and arguably limits freedom of expression by cutting off revenue to broadcasters, internet platforms, independent content creators, publishers and other organizations that rely on advertising revenue to fund their work. Smart.
If you don’t believe me, just look at what Sadiq Khan, Labour’s ‘pioneering’ Mayor of London, has come up with.
He introduced his own ban on junk food advertising on the capital’s public transport network in 2019, and this ban is strictly enforced.
In March, for example, it emerged that comedian Ed Gamble was forced to redesign his tour poster because it showed him eating a hot dog. The offending sausage did not comply with Khan’s rules and had to be replaced with a cucumber, with somewhat surreal results.
A company advertising artisanal cheeses was banned because the fat content of its products was too high.
But then, last week, in the run-up to the vote on assisted dying in the House of Commons, tube stations were suddenly decorated with posters from the pressure group Dignity in Dying. In one, an attractive blonde in striped satin pajamas dances around her kitchen as if she has just won the lottery.
“My dying wish is that my family doesn’t have to see me suffer,” the caption reads.
In another, a woman laughs as she strums a guitar. Once again the caption reads: ‘My dying wish is to play with the ones I love.’ The general impression is that assisted death, far from being the last resort of desperate people, is an attractive and rather cool lifestyle choice.
In other words, no cheese or sausages for you kids – but if you want to sandwich yourself, go ahead. Tell me, what kind of twisted logic is that? Transport for London (TfL) insisted the obituaries were ‘compliant’ with the rules.
But it doesn’t end there. TfL also recently gave the green light to posters featuring controversial Muslim preacher Ismail ibn Musa Menk, known as Mufti Menk. Pictured surrounded by flaming US dollar bills, he is advertising an Islamic financial vehicle.
Mr Menk, who once preached that gays were “worse than animals”, has been accused of pushing “segregationist and divisive teachings” and banned from Singapore and Denmark for his extreme views.
And yet apparently none of these things are a problem under Mr. Khan. Once again, the Labor apparatchiks are proving that it’s one rule for them – and for everyone else, a hard whack on the knuckles with a ruler.
Of course, we need to tackle the obesity crisis in this country. But censorship and handing over control to the Nanny State is not the way to address this.
Ultimately, the only growth these policies will stifle will be that of the country’s creative industries – while adding to the ever-expanding waistline of the bloated public sector.
In other words: Labour’s dream, everyone else’s nightmare.