29 September, 2004

King-sized marketing spin won't cut obesity

Green MP Sue Kedgley said today that the claim that selling a king-size chocolate bar with a cut down the middle would somehow contribute to reducing the obesity epidemic was absurd.

"It is an example of a worrying trend - food manufacturers jumping on the bandwagon and using a claim to reduce obesity as a marketing ploy, while refusing to do anything substantial to reduce the high fat and sugar quantities in their food," said Ms Kedgley, the Green Party's Safe Food spokesperson.

"If Masterfoods Australia and New Zealand was genuinely concerned with reducing obesity in New Zealand, they would simply remove all king-size chocolate bars.

"Other steps they and other food manufacturers could take is reducing the fat content of chocolate bars - and all foods marketed at children - and identifying high fat foods with a warning on a label.

"Masterfoods are obviously not prepared to take any of these genuine measures, and have come up instead with a ploy - cutting a king-size bar in half - that they're using as a marketing device.

"If the food industry wants to be seen to be genuinely concerned with helping to reduce obesity in New Zealand, there are a simple set of measures I have outlined in my ten-point obesity plan, that they could introduce tomorrow," she said.

"I challenge Masterfoods and all other food manufacturers to do so."

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>