A recent study published in the British Medical Journal has revealed how the advertising industry has lobbied to weaken local healthier food advertising policies across England, but Sefton Council in Merseyside remains steadfast in its commitment to its Healthy Advertising Policy. Dr Margaret Jones, Sefton Council’s director of public health, who spearheaded the initiative, insists the policy is crucial for promoting healthier food choices and protecting vulnerable communities.
The BMJ’s investigation, which involved Freedom of Information requests to 52 English councils, uncovered evidence of direct interference from the advertising industry. Tactics included communications designed to delay, dilute, or exaggerate the financial risks of healthy advertising policies. The report highlighted misinformation aimed at exploiting the financial vulnerabilities of cash-strapped councils, with some facing what the BMJ described as a “tobacco playbook” of strategies, including financial warnings and claims that advertisers could help address obesity.
In 2024, Sefton Council implemented its Healthy Advertising Policy. This policy bans the advertisement of junk food products high in fat, salt, and sugar on council-owned advertising spaces. Dr Jones explained the policy’s intent: “By adopting a Healthy Advertising Policy in Sefton, we want people across Sefton to have a wider choice by shifting the spotlight to healthier options. Our main aim is to protect the most vulnerable and improve community resilience by encouraging advertising that broadens healthier food and drink choices. Aggressive and powerful marketing of unhealthy food does not encourage this broadening of choice. Instead, it aggressively limits choice by suggesting the products being sold are the only option, meaning people’s ability to choose has been taken away from them. And as we can see from this BMJ research, the advertising industry is taking an active role in this process and targeting councils with policies like ours with interference and misinformation.”
The study noted that neighbouring Liverpool City Council faced similar industry tactics, underscoring a broader pattern of resistance to such policies. Yet, Sefton’s resolve remains unshaken. Dr Jones highlighted the policy’s focus on children in deprived areas, stating: “We know that the marketing of less healthy products is targeted at children in our most deprived areas. While we are already doing a great deal of work to tackle child poverty in Sefton, this is a factor we know we need to address. For almost 20 years, the major companies those advertisers represent have been using Nutrient Profiling to work out which products they can promote. The Nutrient Profiling model was developed by the Food Standards Agency to help Ofcom differentiate foods and improve the balance of that television advertising to children. Nearly 20 years on it would not be complicated or onerous for these companies to manage.”
Introduced in 2004/05, the Nutrient Profiling model uses a scoring system. It balances beneficial nutrients important for children’s diets against components like fat, salt, and sugar that should be consumed sparingly. The score determines whether a food or drink can be advertised on television during children’s viewing hours.
Dr Jones added: “We know that visible endorsement is powerful and that the unhealthy advertising with which children and families are regularly bombarded adversely affects their food choices. So, by shifting the balance to promoting healthier food with less emphasis on products high in saturated fat, salt, and sugar, we want to encourage a healthier balance. And as well as reduce inequalities across the Borough, it results in reduced waste and cleaner neighbourhoods, which has a positive knock-on effect on climate change.”
Sefton’s commitment to healthier food environments predates this policy. In 2017, the council signed the Local Authority Declaration on Healthy Weight, endorsing improved food and drink provisions, including healthy school catering. The council also drew on expertise from Knowsley, a pioneer in the Liverpool City Region, and collaborated with Sustain, an alliance for better food and farming, to address concerns like revenue loss.
Dr Jones sees the policy as a starting point with far-reaching potential. She concluded: “Adopting the Healthy Advertising Policy is just the beginning. We need to demonstrate its long-term and far-reaching benefits to a broad range of stakeholders. And having highlighted the issue, we need to maintain the focus. We will be working with our partners and our communications teams to spotlight the policy and its widespread outcomes and benefits. It’s early days but we are confident this is a piece of work that can have a positive and long-lasting effect not only for Sefton and the Liverpool City Region but across the whole country.
“As I have mentioned we are not introducing anything the industry is not fully aware of and able to deal with. We are simply trying to create an environment where everyone, wherever they live, can make the same informed choices. I hope that rather than trying to put obstacles in our way at the cost of people’s health, the food industry and its advertisers will work with us to implement health changes, which they can fully afford to implement.”
