Over the weekend both Professor Terence Stephenson, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and Professor Dinesh Bhugra, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said the Government should consider the imposition of a "fat tax", and introducing a 9pm watershed on television adverts for products high in salt and fat.
In a survey of 20 convenience stores and petrol stations, almost all located within five minutes’ walk of a school, The Daily Telegraph found that 65 per cent of crisp packets on sale weighed 40g or over, more than the current standard size of 34.5g.
Over 43 per cent of bags weighed 50g or over.
Robert Opie, the food and brand historian, said crisp packets during the 1950s up until the 1990s were usually sold in 25g bags.
The survey also revealed widespread discounting of unhealthy product lines, with Shell and WH Smith both offering two 50g Walkers ‘grab bags’ for £1.
A 50g bags of McCoys crisps, on offer at most of the outlets, contained 16g of fat, and 0.9g of salt nearly a quarter of a child's recommended daily allowance.
The Food Standards Agency is in the process of investigating whether sweet, crisp and snack sizes can be reduced. It has discovered that the average packet size of many standard foods has doubled in the last two decades.
PepsiCo, who make Walkers and Doritos crisps, announced a major commitment to healthy living in March, saying they would scrap the 40g and 50g ‘grab bag’ of crisps by 2015. They want to introduce a cap of 160 calories per pack. United Biscuits, which makes McCoys, has a policy of "providing healthier options of standard products".
However, the results of The Daily Telepraph survey suggested manufacturers are making slow progress in implementing healthier portion sizes. In some stores – including branches of WH Smith and BP service stations – over 90 per cent of the crisp bags on offer weighed 40g or over.
Food companies said they had made great progress in reducing the salt and fat content of their crisps in recent years and that it was up to retailers what size packets they stocked.
However, Christine Haigh, at the Children's Food Campaign, said: "From a children's health point of view increasing portion sizes are a nightmare. And manufacturers need to take a lead. After all, 25g used to be the standard size. Then it became 34g and now it appears to have become 40g or even 50g."
A spokeswoman for PepsiCo said: “Although it is up to retailers to choose which crisps to stock, we are taking this very seriously. We have pledged that we will stop selling larger bag sizes by 2015.”
James Lowman, chief executive of the Association of Convenience Stores, said: “Retailers stock what customers want to buy. As soon as customers stop buying them, we’ll stop stocking them.”
Source and thanks to www.telegraph.co.uk.
