Does it send the wrong message?
A Dáil committee has recommended that a moratorium on the selling of online adverts for baby formula be put in place. This recommends a ban on advertising to children online – including for junk food, alcohol, high fat/salt/sugar foods and gambling.
Rules are already in place on TV and radio under the FSAI but this recommendation would take it further, and also extend it to online.
However, the moratorium has not gone down well with everyone – and has provoked fury in both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, as the ban on advertising puts baby formula in same category as junk food and alcohol
Speaking on Newstalk’s Lunchtime Live, Fine Gael senator Tim Lombard angrily denounced the Media and Culture Committee and said putting baby formula in this category was ‘an extraordinarily disproportionate decision’.
“I think when you put infant formula, and a ban on infant formula… being advertised online in the same category as junk food, alcohol, high fat, salt, all these issues – even gambling – I think it gives up the wrong impression of what actually baby formula is.”
Lombard went on to say that such a move would be disrespectful to many people.
“I think baby formula has no comparison to alcohol or junk food or gambling issues”.
He continued:
“I know there’s strict regulations on advertising it, which have been in place for a long time, and we all realise that breast is best. But when it comes to actually putting baby infant formula into that same category, I think it does a disrespectful service to the actual industry, to the farms and to the community itself.”
Lombard also stated that while we are all familiar at this stage that when it comes to babies, breast is best, and breastfeeding needs to be encouraged, this still sends the wrong message to mothers.
“We all know the benefit of breast is best, but the real issue here is we can’t just talking down [sic] an actual product that’s needed by a certain proportion of people – or women in particular – that they need it because of circumstances of their life at the time. I just think we need to have a proportionate response, and I don’t think having a moratorium – which is an unusual phrase in its own right – is appropriate”.
Ban is a ‘continuation’ of WHO code
Lombard says an online moratorium on adverts of high-fat and junk foods, alcohol and gambling makes sense – but this does not.
“I don’t think baby formula has a place there when you talk about alcohol or when you talk about junk food. If anything baby formula is a nutritious product that’s used by a proportion of society because they need it a certain time”.
However, not everyone agrees with Senator Lombard.
Social Democrat TD Jennifer Whitmore explained that while alcohol and baby formula clearly cannot be compared, Ireland still has obligations.
“Ireland has signed up to the World Health Organisation Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes,” Whitmore explained to Newstalk.
“And this is just a continuation of that: you are not allowed in print or media to actually advertise baby formula for under six-month-olds. Personally, I would like to see that extended, beyond six-month-olds, because I do think what we need to be doing is actually supporting mothers to make the choice to breastfeed.”
Whitmore continues:
“And I think that support isn’t available to them – whether it’s within hospital or when they leave the hospital – because there’s such resourcing issues with the HSE when it comes to lactation consultants. So I actually think what’s happening in a lot of instances is that the formula companies are sort of filling this information and support gap that has been left by the Government.”
