What’s your view on the issue? For the December 15 edition of Das ka Dum, we asked Dr Bhaskar Das a question for his view. Read on…
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Q. The British government has put off the decision to ban junk food advertising. Do you think India should also consider such a policy?
A. It’s a good intention which is yet to be implemented (may be effective 2023 so far I know). But I doubt if they would go the whole hog on the same. There will be some stipulations or the other, perhaps. Public domain reports suggest so.
There is no doubt that health has been a global scare due to various factors like climate change, frequent epidemics etc. Food habits accentuate that. Junk food habits among the young (not only age but mindset wise) and adolescent obesity has been a global phenomenon. I am not suggesting stopping advertisements would result in behavioural transformation overnight (as we have seen in case of cigarette and alcohol bans) , but at a societal level spreading of awareness/ consciousness has to happen and we have to start somewhere. I am always in favour of initiatives that augur well for citizens in the health and welfare space. We ought to advocate working towards a healthy society/ country.