Legal loopholes allow misleading food ads; FSSAI takes no action: Report

New Delhi: Doctors and sociologists have said in a new report that loopholes in at least several Indian laws and regulations allow food companies to promote misleading advertisements for unhealthy foods with almost no punitive action from the food regulator, urging the government to plug the loopholes.

One of their main demands is to define the term “HFSS” in food safety regulations, i.e. junk food high in fat, sugar and salt, because in the absence of such a definition, no action can be taken against companies advertising food products harmful to health.

Foods high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS) are known to increase the risk of noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and hypertension.

Public health activists made the demand weeks after the Hyderabad-based National Institute of Nutrition, an arm of the Indian Council of Medical Research, released the country’s latest dietary guidelines, which, among other things, set thresholds for salt, added sugar, added fat and calories in such products.

“ICMR guidelines need to be incorporated into rules and regulations for field operations,” said Arun Gupta, a pediatrician and coordinator of Nutrition Advocacy in Public Interest, a non-governmental organisation that works on public health and nutrition. The report, prepared by NAPI, was released here on Friday.

Activists have asked the government to amend six laws and regulations that will enable effective control of junk food advertising.

These are the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, the Food Safety and Standards (Packaging and Labelling) Rules, 2011, the Food Safety and Standards (Advertising and Claims) Rules, 2018, the Cable Television Networks Regulation and Act, 1994 (Advertising Code) and the Standards of Conduct for Journalists issued by the Press Council of India in 2022.

“Tobacco advertising was banned because of its health implications. The same logic can be applied to banning HFSS food advertising because the burden of noncommunicable diseases far exceeds lung cancer,” said Vandana Prasad, a community pediatrician and NAPI member.

When they complained to the FSSAI about nearly 150 such advertisements, the regulator formed a committee to investigate them and found at least 32 of them to be misleading. “But none were fined as per the regulations,” the report said. “FSSAI only sought an explanation from the companies,” Gupta added.

“Our analysis shows a weakness in the process of identifying misleading advertising as the FSS Act, 2006 does not provide any objective definition,” said sociologist Nupur Bidla, one of the report’s co-authors.

The Consumer Protection Act 2019 defines “misleading advertising” as a product or service that deliberately conceals “important” information. “However, consumer law does not define material information in the context of food,” she noted.