British children with a sweet tooth may find themselves disappointed by Chilean breakfast. On a box of “Zucaritas”, or Frosties, the mascot Tony the tiger is nowhere to be seen. Only orange scratch marks remind us that he has been ripped from the cereal packet. In the top right-hand corner, two black stop signs read: alto en calorias and alto en azucares (high in calories and high in sugar).
The packaging is the result of Chile’s radical anti-junk-food reforms, which began in 2012. But have the laws worked? And what can they, and similar strict measures introduced across Latin America, teach the UK — where nearly one in ten children starting school are overweight or obese — as it embarks on a new era of food industry regulation?
Chile’s food labelling and marketing law, which came into effect in 2016, implemented a ban on junk food adverts from 6am to 10pm. Cartoon mascots in and on boxes, toys and games, as well as other advertising tactics aimed at children, were prohibited.
It also introduced black warning labels on foods high in fat, sugar and salt. In 2014, the tax on high-sugar soft drinks was increased, and reduced on low-sugar soft drinks. Overall in Chile, children now see 73 per cent fewer ads for junk food.
Dr Ximena Aguilera, Chile’s health minister, says that while her country’s reforms are not perfect, they offer clear lessons for the UK in both patience and persistence.
Britain is not starting from scratch. The 2018 soft drinks industry levy led to a 46 per cent reduction in the sugar in soft drinks by 2020, measured against 2015 levels. The ban on junk food adverts on the Transport for London network, in place since 2019, is thought to have prevented 94,867 cases of obesity.
The research, from Sheffield University and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine also predicted the policy would save the National Health Service more than £200 million over the lifetime of the current population.
From October in the UK, marketing of foods high in fat, salt and sugar will be banned in paid online promotions and shown on television only after 9pm. But experts say loopholes remain in the form of unpaid online promotions, brand-only marketing and outdoor advertising.
Katharine Jenner, director of Obesity Health Alliance, a coalition of more than 60 health organisations, said years of delays, fuelled by consultations and industry pushback, had drained momentum in Britain. “It’s a tobacco [industry] playbook tactic — delay, deny and dilute. They hope to kick the can down the road by getting in as many loopholes as possible, while disputing clear evidence that policies like this work,” she added.
Those who are against food policy reform in Britain, such as the free market economist Christopher Snowdon, say the policies are anti-growth. “Supposedly, growth is this government’s No 1 priority. Yet it keeps doing things which undermine it,” he said.
But Latin American politicians endured far greater opposition. Aguilera warns: “Prepare for significant industry pushback and adaptation. Food manufacturers here quickly developed new marketing strategies that we hadn’t anticipated.”
In Mexico, Dr Simon Barquera, a well-respected government health scientist, Alejandro Calvillo, the director of a consumer and health advocacy organisation, and Luis Encarnación, the director of a coalition working on obesity prevention, were targeted by malicious spyware.
Fran Bernhardt from Sustain, a campaign for better food and farming, recently visited Latin America and says the UK government must match the bravery of politicians in Chile, Mexico and Colombia, who have been “resilient and determined in the face of relentless and aggressive attacks from industry”.
Barquera himself believes that online regulation is now a key weapon in the health food policy arsenal. “Today, digital platforms have become one of the most critical areas to regulate effectively because of the high level of interactivity they offer,” he said.
Aguilera agrees that the UK can build on Chile’s findings in this area by acting more decisively on online advertising. “Our digital marketing regulations have proven insufficient for today’s social media landscape,” she said. “The UK has an opportunity to develop more effective approaches in this area.”
Critics of the Chilean government’s laws say they have not reduced childhood obesity in the country, which in 2012 had the highest rate of childhood obesity in Latin America. While the prevalence of obesity in Chile’s children dropped by between one and three percentage points between 2002 and 2022, rates have begun to plateau since.
However, the nutrition and obesity researcher Professor Barry Popkin, who led the group of researchers at the University of North Carolina who worked with Chilean politicians to guide the introduction of the black warning labels, advises patience.
Expecting a measurable decline in obesity in the short term is unrealistic. “We’re only now finishing studies looking at obesity decline in the school kids in Chile, from between the time the law began and until a couple of years ago,” he added. “We’ve seen a serious decline in adolescent girls’ weight, but we’re still cleaning the data for boys.” He expects the data for boys to confirm that, overall, obesity in Chile has declined in school children.
Popkin’s earlier research also shows that purchases of sugary products dropped in Chile by 37 per cent, and by 22 per cent for products high in salt — an undeniably healthy trend. His team found no evidence of job loss or economic downturn as a result of Chile’s laws, nor an increase in food prices.
Proponents of the Chilean system hope these facts will be enough to sway the UK government, which still seems to be appeasing the food industry. Half the seats on the government’s new food strategy advisory board were recently awarded to industry players, despite experts warning they should be kept out of the room.
A UK government spokesman said its crackdowns on junk food advertising that targeted children were “just the first steps” and that it intended to “shift the focus from sickness to prevention to deliver our plan for change and meet our ambition of raising the healthiest generation of children ever”.
While that commitment remains to be seen, Latin America has shown what’s possible when public health comes before politics. Can Britain muster up the courage to go even further from October?
