Junk food ads that target kids may become restricted in Canada.
Health Canada says the proposal part of their Healthy Eating Strategy and commitment to protect the health of children.
Restricting food advertising to children has been a mandate commitment from the Health Minister since 2015, but this would be a more targeted approach for tv and digital media, that would come first. This, considering the amount of screen time many children are exposed to.
Health Canada has made a number of other changes as part of their Healthy Eating Strategy:
- released a new Canada’s food guide
- improved the nutrition facts tables and ingredient lists
- published new sodium reduction targets for processed foods
- introduced a ban on partially hydrogenated oils, the main source of industrially produced trans fats in Canadian food
- introduced new front of package labelling requirements for prepackaged foods high in sodium, sugars or saturated fat
The updated proposal is here.