Faculty of Law, University of Sydney, F10 Eastern Avenue, Camperdown, NSW 2006, Australia.
J Bioeth Inq. 2013 Jun;10(2):149-63. doi: 10.1007/s11673-013-9441-z. Epub 2013 Apr 13.
Reducing non-core food advertising to children is an important priority in strategies to address childhood obesity. Public health researchers argue for government intervention on the basis that food industry self-regulation is ineffective; however, the industry contends that the existing voluntary scheme adequately addresses community concerns. This paper examines the operation of two self-regulatory initiatives governing food advertising to children in Australia, in order to determine whether these regulatory processes foster transparent and accountable self-regulation. The paper concludes that while both codes appear to establish transparency and accountability mechanisms, they do not provide for meaningful stakeholder participation in the self-regulatory scheme. Accordingly, food industry self-regulation is unlikely to reflect public health concerns or to be perceived as a legitimate form of governance by external stakeholders. If industry regulation is to remain a feasible alternative to statutory regulation, there is a strong argument for strengthening government oversight and implementing a co-regulatory scheme.
减少向儿童的非核心食品广告是解决儿童肥胖问题的战略中的一个重要优先事项。公共卫生研究人员认为政府干预是必要的，因为食品行业的自我监管是无效的；然而，该行业认为现有的自愿计划足以解决社区的关注。本文研究了澳大利亚两项管理向儿童食品广告的自我监管倡议的运作情况，以确定这些监管程序是否促进了透明和负责任的自我监管。本文的结论是，虽然这两个准则似乎都建立了透明度和问责制机制，但它们并没有为利益相关者在自我监管计划中的有意义参与提供机会。因此，食品行业的自我监管不太可能反映公共卫生方面的关注，也不太可能被外部利益相关者视为合法的治理形式。如果行业监管仍然是法定监管的可行替代方案，那么就有充分的理由加强政府监督并实施共同监管计划。
