Should all TV advertising involving food be required to show the sugar content?

[Guzzler]

You're absolutely right and I hadn't thought that through. Knowledge definitely is power! Which kind of feeds into my counter argument. I can, and do, look up nearly everything I eat, even what my beloved doggie eats! I'd feel patronised if every single foody thing in adverts was analysed and the people to whom it was targeted wouldn't necessarily pay any attention.

We live in the Information Age. We are lucky in a sort of way because as people with Diabetes we can garner knowledge so very easily. If people choose to ignore red flags then at least they have been given that choice, a choice that wasn't available 30/40+ years ago.

 

[ickihun]

I'd be for it as so many people not able to guess or be responsible enough to realise too much sugar is so damaging. My sister and her autistic hubby do do their best but any extra help for them would help.
Did you see the news today (Saturday) about how many rotten teeth young children are getting operated on? 34,000 in the UK. In our educated times.....I didn't expect that.
Sugar has caused those black teeth not basic meal carbs.

 

[AdamJames]

An argument in favour of forcing manufacturers to show sugar content prominently has nothing to do with whether or not it puts people off buying a product.

Forcing them to do so could lead to food manufacturers competing with each other to put less and less sugar (or I'd go along with Mbakers' view that carbs is the important thing to focus on rather than sugar) in their products while making them still palatable.

Same as with forcing car manufacturers to publish emissions data. Regardless of the ins and outs of taxes etc, a big part of the reason why car manufacturers try to minimise emissions on new cars is simply because public consciousness has been raised, and "emissions = bad" is now in people's minds. There will be plenty of people who don't think about emissions, but still, they will be getting a low-emission car just because the market is full of them.

 

[Pinkorchid]

Putting the sugar content in food ads would really not make any difference to anyone unless they have diabetes and listing sugar content would mean they had to list everything else in the food. .I don't think many people would look at an advert long enough to do that. Mostly we think of ads as being an irritant that interrupts the programme we are watching not a guide to what we should eat or not

 

[first14808]

I kind of agree. Especially with changing the 'traffic lights' from sugars to carbs. But then that might need further refining. So picking on Ryvita again, 0.3g sugars per slice, but 66.6g carbs per 100g. Then there's fibre, which are carbs, but might want splitting into soluble/digestible and insoluble.. Which might also help out people with IBS and other conditions. Having to check the small print is a lot less convenient though.

But I guess taking it to it's logical conclusion, government could decide to copy tobacco rules. So advertising bans for sweets, then plain packaging with pics of liposuction waste instead of lungs. Somehow, I suspect the likes of Nestle would object strongly to that.