Never, not even in my wildest dreams, did I have a realistic hope of seeing in Spain what was announced from the Ministry of Consumption in October 2021: After nearly 20 years looking the other way, the administration announced it was rolling up its sleeves to closely and effectively regulate advertising to minors for products that are objectively unhealthy or unhealthy (I refuse to call them food). Most of us who care about nutrition in the society we live in are stunned: happily stunned, to be precise.
Finally, one of the most necessary and demanded measures by professionals in the sector was going to be taken to tackle a problem in which Spain is a leader in its environment: childhood obesity. Let us remember that we have the dubious privilege of occupying third place among the EU countries with the highest comparative rate of obesity and overweight among boys and girls between six and nine years of age. The first positions are occupied by Cyprus, Greece, Spain and Italy: the Mediterranean backlash of the matter is enough to make us look at it.
The Ministry of Consumption then stated that to carry out said regulation it would apply the nutrient profiles established by the WHO in 2015, which we already explained here in 2016. With this system, and regardless of the nutritional values of each product, there would be entire ranges of products -again, I refuse to call them food- that would be banned from the advertising grid of the media, and even from channels such as YouTube, Tik Tok or Instagram. For example, all confectionery, cookies, ice cream, soft drinks, energy drinks and juices: The Ministry announced it on social networksand nutritionists clapped our ears.
But last week dark clouds appeared around the achievement of this measure: The Ministry of Agriculture has made a move and opposes this regulation. It is no coincidence that the FIAB, the employers’ association that includes the main manufacturers of ultra-processed products whose interests would be seriously affected by this regulation, also positioned itself against it from minus one minute.
Corporate capture, a common scourge of politics
In this life there are two great engines that guide important decisions, one is love and the other is money; and if, finally, this measure ends up being discarded, it will not be out of love. Much less for the love of childhood and their health: so clear the journalist recounted it rhetorically Laura Caorsi on his Twitter account. This is an issue older than the black thread: in 2013 the then Director General of the WHO, Margaret Chan, distanced herself with some harsh words during a public speech in which she stated that the economic interests of the food industry distort Public Health policies.
In that speech, Dr. Chan’s pulse did not tremble when pointing out the origin of the dangers that threaten Public Health policies: mainly the multinationals of ultra-processed foods and alcohol. Specifically, and literally, he stated that it is the companies in the sector that, in order to avoid detriment to their balance sheets, create companies within their own group with a “friendly face” -pressure groups or lobby-, they promise to self-regulate , file lawsuits and finance “research studies” that what they finally achieve is to distort the evidence and mislead the consumer.
It is what is known as corporate capture of Public Health, a concept that Dr. Miguel-Angel Royo-Bordonada accurately explained in this document. In short, “corporate capture is the intentional process by which political decisions respond to a particular, private interest, to the detriment of the public interest. The result is unfair regulation or the absence of regulation when it is necessary for the protection of the common good. It cannot be more clear.
Another example of this capture, beyond the case that concerns us if in the end it does not prosper, we find it in the apparent impossibility of moving forward with an anti-alcohol Law -do not be misled by the name, it is actually the harvest of the lobby on duty- in 20 years despite having raised in this period four bills, and that these were proposed by executives of different political color. None prospered. Industry 4- Public Health 0.
The famous and shameful self-regulation that you have to flee from
The affected industry almost always offers the same solution when there is a threat that a regulation restricts its “freedom”: self-regulation. To understand each other, self-regulation is an alternative method to true regulation, through which the food industry agrees with the administration that it will comply with the rules that it itself writes and, if necessary, will also control and penalize infringements. .
Although this sounds very good, it is still the armed wing with which the already described corporate capture materializes. In the field that concerns us, the self-regulation that the sector enjoys has a name and surname: PAOS Code. A national self-regulation system of food advertising aimed at children from 2005 that in 18 years has received minimal but pompous updates; to which more ineffective. A code that neither works to avoid anything nor is it applied despite its constant violations by the signatories (it is what the “auto” part of the matter has).
The PAOS Code is also a voluntary adherence regulation in which the fact of being adhered to is not a guarantee of complying with anything; that’s why published studies Regarding its operation, they brand it as absolutely ineffective. Therefore, as I already recounted in its day in this Editorial of the Primary Care magazine, allowing self-regulation in terms of food advertising aimed at children and adolescents is a toast to the sun: it can be very pretty, be very effective, open the news in many informative spaces and grab headlines… but it is useless. Even worse than doing nothing because of the opportunity cost, for giving the image that something is being done, that something is legitimized, and so on.
You can’t always do the same thing and get different results.
That self-regulation -at least in Spain- does not work is a fact, not an opinion. In fact, only countries with legal regulations have managed to reduce the pressure of advertising unhealthy products directed at children, and the PAOS Code is set as an example outside our borders of what should not be done.
If the executive has the sincere will to bend the curve of childhood obesity in Spain, it will have to be with something different from what it has been doing since 2005, with no effect and to the delight of the producers. I am not saying that they are happy about childhood obesity, but they are happy about not having to suffer regulations with the force of law and, therefore, not having to be accountable to anyone.
Following the announcement by Consumption to regulate advertising through a decree, President Sánchez promised to tackle the problem of childhood obesityand a few months later appeared the National Strategic Plan for the Reduction
Of Childhood Obesity (2022 – 2030). In strategic line number five -that of guaranteeing the protection of children’s health- measure number 37 includes, verbatim, the intention to “Develop regulation of food and beverage marketing”.
The problem of childhood obesity in Spain is very serious. Here are some of the figures offered by the aforementioned report:
- 41% of girls from six to nine years old are overweight or obese, this figure is 42% in the case of boys. Despite this, seven out of 10 overweight schoolchildren are perceived by their parents as having a normal weight.
- Obesity has doubled in children and adolescents in the last 20 years.
- Childhood obesity figures are double among boys and girls who live in homes with fewer resources.
- 55% of boys and girls with obesity will be adolescents with obesity. In turn, 80% of adolescents with obesity will be adults with obesity.
Quoting Dr. Chan again: “ending childhood obesity is one of the greatest challenges facing the international community in this century […] and the industry should not have a voice when making Public Health decisions of this magnitude”. What our Ministry of Agriculture thinks, possibly pressured by certain sectors, we should not care. In any case, if the economic question is to be taken into account for decision-making, the Strategic Plan itself states that, for every euro invested in the prevention of obesity in Spain, six would be recovered. I leave it there.
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