A step in the right direction:

"Uncle Toby's forced to drop Roll-ups fruit claims-after the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission raised concerns"

http://www.optusnet.com.au/news/story/abc/20060913/16/business/1740243.inp

Presumably the implication is that Uncle Toby's was not telling the truth in their advertising of Roll-ups. And it appears that Australia already has the means to regulate dishonesty in advertising.

I would like to see truth in advertising as a principle upheld in law, with appropriate penalties for deliberate serious breaches. Maybe you would agree with this, Pericles, if you were unfortunate enough to be misled by false advertising and suffered a serious loss as a result, under circumstances where you did not have suitable recourse. But whether you agree with this or not, the general public should be protected from commercial liars.

There is a precedent. Tobacco used to be advertised as being associated with glamour, health, sport, success, beautiful emancipated ladies and handsome macho men. It took far too long, but Australia eventually banned such nonsense. But not before tobacco related deaths were at epidemic level. Well, obesity is now at epidemic level too and demanding truth in advertising in regard to junk food would be a step in the right direction.

Rex,

I don’t think the issue of truth in advertising is so much the problem: as your link showed there are mechanisms to pull marketers into line when they start stretching the rules about what is factual and what isn’t. Although I’m always fascinated by some of the pseudo scientific claims beauty products seem to get away with. I’d love to know the science behind making your hair up to 87.2 % flouncier or whatever, but I’ve never been able to track down the website of the American Academy of Hair Flounciness to check the studies.

Advertising is often much more subtle than simply providing information that may or may not be factual. It's more often about generating emotional responses people associate with the product. The idea is to cue these responses to modify people's behaviour.

The most successful Aussie ad ever, the perennial VB ad series (not sure if you get them interstate)is a brilliant example of the ad maker's art. It consists of nothing more than a series cues "You can get it x-ing a y" coupled with a basic drive (thirst) tied to the product. Strictly speaking, a hard earned thirst needs water - the hops, barley and alcohol are physiologically optional - but the ad is as fine and elegant (from an advertiser's point of view) as a Picasso line drawing.

My concern is what happens when you expose small children to such relentless cueing to a product that - while benign small doses - has addictive potential and significant health consequences with increased consumption.

Pericles,

The “market share” argument was used by the tobacco lobby when they were fighting moves to ban tobacco advertising. Companies argued they were only competing with each other for a stable existing market, and that advertising didn’t affect the size of the total pie. This claim was repeatedly shown to be rubbish.

We accept a variety of restrictions on the ways addictive substances can be marketed and advertised, from outright prohibition, (e.g. heroin, cannabis) through prescription only (some other opiates, benzodiazepines), through no advertising, regulated supply (tobacco) through restricted advertising, regulated supply (alcohol) to complete free for all (caffeine, junk food). The fact a product is not prohibited doesn’t mean that advertising shouldn’t be regulated. I’m sympathetic to your question about who decides and how you draw the lines, but the fact it’s difficult doesn’t mean you should ignore the issue. My instinctive libertarian streak makes me suspicious of “nannying”, but I think we have an obligation as a society to protect children from exploitation by companies that don’t have their best interests at heart.

I don’t think this is a trivial issue. The trends suggest we’re facing an epidemic of coronary heart disease and type II diabetes. My understanding of how addictions develop suggests to me we’re priming kids from an early age for later addictions. Of course all professionals have tendency to overstate threats and risks – it’s how we maintain a sense of self importance. But I reckon this is where the science is heading.

Not sure if I want to see a total ban, but I’d like to see junk food marketers not directly targeting kids who are too young to understand what is being done to them

A good, reasonably non-point-of-view link with a good overview of the issues on this subject is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_food_advertising

(I'm really becoming a massive fan of wikipedia. They seem to have articles providing basic information on just about anything).

An accurate cartoon comment:

http://www.newstarget.com/020430.html

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