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Australian based fast food companies have agreed to a new guidelines relating to the marketing of children called “Australian quick service restaurant industry initiative for responsible advertising and marketing to children”. This has been signed by McDonalds, Hungry Jacks, Oporto, Red Rooster, Chicken Treat, KFC, and Pizza Hutt.

The big break though is that for the first time these companies will make sure that they have a nutritional information available upon request in their restaurants and also information on their websites and packaging where possible.

The impetus behind this is to ensure appropriate advertising to children which follows the communities back lash regarding the practices of advertising fast food to children.

The organisation which the main players in the fast food industry belongs to is called the Australia Association of National Advertises (AANA) who strongly supported this initiative.

To ensure that there is transparency and adherence to the code an independent third party will be assigned to ensure that they all are complying.

The Guidelines go further with the energy requirements, say 4-8 year olds 2080 kilojoules per meal and 9-10 year olds 2770 kilojoules per meal and also stipulate levels of saturated fat, sugar, and sodium. Whether these levels are satisfactory is open to debate.

Awash, the Australian Division of the World Action on Salt and health recommends an upper limit of 2.5gms for 4-8 year olds with a simple chart showing some lower salt options verses what may be a typical salt intake.

So hopefully with the new guidelines the fast food companies can adopt these new guidelines in changing there marketing to children strategies.

Royal Childrens Hospital allowing McDonalds at new $1B hospital, is this sending a positive message given high levels of childhood Obesity?

The Royal Childrens Hospital has introduced a strict nutritional requirement for all food vendors to comply with in order to operate at their new hospital.
The new Traffic Light nutritional guidelines are similar to what has been introduced by the City of Melbourne at the food court at QV Building.

The guidelines are based on having a simple means to quickly determine what is healthy by adopting the traffic light colours of Red, Amber & Green.

The question is whether children would ultimately decide what they want to eat irrespective of whether it is healthy or not and more specifically will having McDonalds at the hospital bring greater benefits to children other than creating strong brand recognition from an early age?

By having McDonalds at at hospital sending a message of endorsement to not only parents but children who may not yet have the maturity or knowledge to make informed nutritional decisions.

While the issue of childhood obesity is extremely complex, is having a fast food company at the Royal Childrens hospital a responsible decision?

The City of Melbourne Council has introduced a new Traffic light Nutritional Guideline system to food vendors at the food court at QV in Melbourne’s CBD to enable the public to make more informed choices about the nutritional value of foods without having to navigate any food labeling information.

The guidelines have been simplified into 3 colours, Red, Amber & Green which is universally understood by most people when referenced to traffic lights.

Red – less healthy choice

Nutritional value = Low
Saturated fat and/or sugar and/or salt = High
Kilojoules = High
Overall: Minimise/reduce consumption

Amber – ok choice, more about moderation

Caution to be exercised
Saturated fat and/or sugar and/or salt = Moderate
Kilojoules = High if consumed in large serving sizes
Nutritional value = Not significant enough to influence decision to purchase
Overall: Moderate consumption, foods are mainly processed

Green – The healthiest choice
Nutritional & Fibre value = High
Saturated fat and/or sugar and/or salt = Low
Kilojoules = Low
Overall: Aim to consume these when making decisions to buy

So far 9 Food Outlets have participated in this program that has been every menu item have been analysised subject to the accreditation process of Nutrition Australia.

This lead to some changes in the type of cooking oils used, substituting high fat diary products with low fat, leaner cuts of meat and introducing more fresh fruit & vegetables.

Check out the Melbourne City Council’s website for more info about the “Green Light, Eat Right” campaign

So overall definitely a move in the right direction by Melbourne City Council in introducing the traffic light nutritional guidelines.

New video game controllers will change the user experience from the more traditional controllers.
Will this lead to less couch time and more simulation of what ever activity the gamer is trying to replicate?

The next evolution of the controllers will be interesting to follow

London Mayor Boris Johnson cycling on a proposed “super highways” route with Transport Minister Lord Adonis and Kulveer Ranger, his director of transport were almost killed by this freak accident.

While “Copenhagen Style Bicycle lane” would have not avoided a tragedy on this occasion it demonstrates the fine line between seerious injury and safety for the millions of bicycle commuters in major cities around the world.