Spain to take bite out of kids' junk-food cravings

Spain has announced plans to stop fast-food companies and candymakers specifically targeting children with their advertising.

The move, which the government hopes will help protect the nation's young people from obesity and other health problems, includes an intended ban on online influencers, TV personalities, sports stars, and others from encouraging kids to consume unhealthy food and drink.

The government has started the ball rolling on its intended new law by asking the public to comment on the concept, before lawmakers get to debate the plan and vote on it.

The country's consumer affairs ministry said in a statement introducing the idea: "The ban would prohibit appearances in commercial communications by parents, educators, teachers, children's TV professionals, sportspeople, artists, influencers, and people or characters - be they real or fictional - who may, by dint of their careers, be likely to represent a model or example for these minors."

The ministry said "unhealthy food and drink" would include products that contain large amounts of fat, salt, sodium, or sugar.

Additionally, the ministry said it plans to recruit the online influencers, TV personalities, sports stars, and others who would be prohibited from advertising unhealthy products under the new law, and get them promoting healthy choices instead, through educational campaigns.

Alberto Garzon, the politician who heads up the consumer affairs ministry and is the leader of the United Left alliance within Spain's coalition government, said he wants ads for unhealthy products that are aimed at children to be banned from television stations, the internet, cinemas, newspapers, and the radio, in order to tackle "the serious public health problem of childhood obesity", The Guardian newspaper reported.

The Spanish government was stung into action after a study published in 2019 revealed 40 percent of children aged 6 to 9 were overweight, and around 17 percent were officially categorized obese.

Garzon has also been in the news in Spain recently for urging people to cut down on their consumption of factory-farmed meat, in favor of organic options, something the meat industry and right-wing critics slammed him for.

With Spain now Europe's biggest exporter of ham and the nation's meat exports in 2020 worth more than $6 billion, Garzon's critics have said his eagerness to combat climate change and pollution by encouraging people to eat less meat could cost a lot of money and jobs.

Reuters news agency quoted Pablo Casado, leader of the right-wing People's Party, as saying in a speech last month voters need "more farming and less communism" in response to Garzon's entreaties for people to eat more healthily.

Pundits say Garzon's drive to dissuade young people from eating unhealthy food could be as controversial as his attempts to curtail meat consumption, and may put the coalition government, which comprises parties from a wide range of political philosophies, under considerable pressure.