THE promotion of better eating habits is a good thing, particularly when it’s aimed at fighting childhood obesity.
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That’s the argument of those supporting a call for junk food to be banned from all playgrounds and sporting centres in response to the City of Port Phillip’s decision to ban junk food from South Melbourne’s Skinners Adventure Playground.
One Border dietician, Kerryn O’Brien, said while the call might be “a bit over the top”, the community needed to do something about junk food.
The problem is that such a ban simply seems like another example of the promotion of the nanny state.
How is the Melbourne council planning to police the ban at its playground?
And is embarrassing parents for giving their children a treat when they’re on an outing really going to achieve the behaviour change the dieticians say we need?
We’re certain most parents are well aware of the need to balance their children’s diets.
Helping them to do so with advice about family menus is one thing.
Making them and their children a focus for ridicule at the local park for something that isn’t illegal does seem to be over the top.
