The Ministry of Health (MoH) organised a webinar on Saturday as part of its ongoing effort to control and monitor the advertising of food and beverages to children to fight obesity in the Sultanate.
An MoH study between 2016 and 2020 found that one in five children was overweight or obese.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified the code of marketing, including advertising, of food and beverages to children to be the main culprit of the trend.
The ministry has collaborated with various agencies to launch the Code on Responsible Marketing of Food and Beverages to Children in Brunei Darussalam (CORM) with the monitoring work entering its third term of the year.
Last week’s webinar aimed at briefing 45 food and beverage distributors on the code. Among the participants were Sim Kim Huat Department Store, Guan Hock Lee Food and Sinar Sosro Indonesia.
The webinar was moderated by health education officer at the Health Promotion Centre (HPC) Nadhirah Rawi and facilitated by senior medical officer at the HPC Dr Hajah Norol Ehsan binti Haji Abdul Hamid.
Participants were briefed on the three principles of the code: marketing to children must observe social responsibility to consumers and the society; marketing to children should not make use of children’s loyalty or lack of knowledge and experience or without reason, use fear to mislead them; and popular children’s characters should not be used in marketing to promote food which undermine a healthy diet.
