Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alicia Wang (王育敏) yesterday accused the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of dereliction of duty over what she said was its inadequate regulations over junk food TV commercials and threatened to subject the agency to a Control Yuan impeachment.
“An amendment was passed to the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法) in June last year that provided the agency with a legal basis for regulations banning junk food manufacturers from airing commercials during children’s prime-time TV slots and marketing junk food to young children by offering free toys,” Wang told a press conference in Taipei.
However, 14 months have passed since the passage of the amendment, but the draft regulations on junk food advertising are still in the notice period and have yet to be implemented, Wang said, giving manufacturers of unhealthy foods a “free pass” to broadcast TV ads intensively during the summer vacation.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Child Welfare League Foundation Office of Research and Development director Chiu Ching-hui (邱靖惠) said the foundation has monitored popular cartoon channels in the past month and found that children who watched the channels were exposed to an average of 12.2 and 17.3 TV ads promoting foods unsuitable for children each day during weekdays and weekends respectively.
“We also found that of the 281 TV commercials Taiwanese children watch per week on average, about 95, or 33.8 percent, are junk food ads. More alarming is that the number of junk food commercials aired during children’s prime-time TV slots between 6pm and 8pm is 1.7 times the number broadcast at other times of the day,” Chiu said.
Chiu said a further breakdown of the ads monitoring results showed that nearly 61.4 percent of the inappropriate food commercials are beverage advertisements, including those selling tea, coffee and soft drinks, followed by fast-food ads at 13.7 percent.
Under the draft regulations, foods or beverages that contain fat accounting for more than 30 percent of the products’ total calories, saturated fat or sugar accounting for more than 10 percent of the total calories, more than 0.3g of trans fatty acids per 100g (100ml for soft drinks) or more than 1mg of sodium per calorie, are prohibited from broadcasting their commercials on children’s TV channels and using toys for marketing.
Wang demanded that the administration promulgate the draft regulations within three months and also categorize caffeine-containing beverages as unsuitable for children.
“Research has shown that caffeine stimulates the central nervous system and causes excitement, hyperactivity and anxiety in children. The WHO, the US’ National Institutes of Health and the UK’s Food Standard Agency have all advised against caffeine consumption for young children,” Wang said.
In response, the Division of Planning and Research Development Director Chih Lan-hui (遲蘭蕙) attributed the FDA’s delay in promulgating the draft regulations to the large number of opinions it received during the notice period.
“The administration is set to call another meeting with nutrition specialists, consumer right advocates and other concerned parties in the near future to try to hammer out a consensus on the content of the regulations,” she said.
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