Kids don’t watch TV so it’s pointless Wes Streeting ban junk meals adverts earlier than 9pm

In the words of that great philosopher Dirty Harry: “A man’s got to know his limitations”.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting appears not to have reached such a moment of clarity just yet. Now his government is planning to ban junk food ads before 9pm in a bid to solve the nation’s obesity crisis.

Here’s the thing: firstly, if you, like me, are a parent to younger children, you will know that a growing number of them no longer watch terrestrial TV at all, let alone before or after 9pm.

Second, let’s assume some do tune into the telly box. Does the government really think families irresponsible enough to feed their kids nothing but junk food will have their kids in bed when they should be?

The issue isn’t binary and it doesn’t mean the government is totally wrong to examine ways we can better address the country’s dysfunctional relationship with fast food.

It does, however, mean Streeting and his health service colleagues should accept certain realities around the push to drive down the obesity rate. If it didn’t cost so much to eat healthily, millions more families would be at it.

In reality, most families simply don’t earn enough or have the time to prepare the meals that would better serve their bodies and their children.

Further, the number of junk food shops available on our street corners – particularly where families are on low wages – compared to supermarkets where healthy food can be bought, is well documented.

How can you expect mums and dads in disenfranchised areas of the UK not to avail themselves of burgers, chips, nuggets and curries if wages are low, inflation is high and time is tight?

Or if exhausted adults on zero hours contracts prioritise bringing money in over the right kind of refuelling for their families?

The issue is far more complex than a 9pm ban that will barely touch the sides. If the government really wants to make an impact, they should throw out the suits and have parents around the table.

Listen to the dads and mums living the actualities of balancing work, the school run, overtime and sorting the kids out every day, instead of advisers who probably don’t have any kids at all. Find ways to support them.

Because when white collar workers on supposedly good money are having to use foodbanks, hot dogs and cheap chip sandwiches are far more practical than vegetarian tofu tacos.

Show more spine tackling big business than Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, who both promised measures and TV watershed bans, only to delay them.

If we can have regulation and litigation for big tech, why can’t we do the same with big food, widely deemed to be producing addictive products, with excessive sugar, salt and fat?

And while the Online Safety Act is aimed at protecting children from content relating to eating disorders, why can’t it address the influencer economy, where unhealthy foods are aimed at the sort of kids who are handed iPads by parents before they can walk?

Governments in this country have been trying to tackle the obesity crisis since the 90s. We had TV ad restrictions during children’s programmes in 2007, a soft drinks tax announced in 2016 and a legal requirement for restaurants and cafe chains to print calorie counts beside dishes on menus.

In 2022, supermarkets were banned from displaying unhealthy foods and drinks in specific areas. Instead things are worse, not better.

To be fair to the big companies, there has been a rise in salad and fruit options at fast food drive-thrus – and the firms would argue they are doing their bit.

Perhaps these organisations need to come together, because the fight against obesity cannot be won by one body alone.