Questionable milk food ads to face restrictions

Chamikara Weerasinghe

COLOMBO: Advertisements on milk food and other food products, publicised by multi-national companies over local electronic and print media will face restrictions in keeping with a decision by the Health and Nutrition Ministry.

Health and Nutrition Minister Nimal Siripala De Silva said the Ministry was contemplating on prohibiting milk food advertisements publicised by some multi-national companies operating in the country as they tend to mislead the public.

The Minister was speaking at a press conference yesterday at the Health and Nutrition Ministry. The press conference was organised in concurrence with International Breast Feeding Week.

De Silva said a section of the public were being misled by these advertisements as they distorted nutritional facts to the public.

“Most milk products do not necessarily contain nutritional properties and quantities which multi-national companies claim they contain through their advertisements,” he explained.

“Most advertisements are based on clinically undetermined facts and figures. They induce an unnecessary urge on the public to go for their brands,” he said.

“The public do not get due nutritional benefits out of these products and this has led to serious health problems,” de Silva noted.

“In other words, the unsuspecting masses are being exploited,” he said. The Health Ministry is intent on stopping this exploitation by taking immediate measures, he said.

The Minister said they would establish a system to scientifically verify the nutritional value in these milk food products and other items in due course.

He had called a meeting in this regard with the Ministry’s scientists and nutritionists.

De Silva said they were in no position to be happy about the country’s nutritional levels with 23 per cent of the country’s children suffering from malnutrition.