Day 050 - 10 Nov 94 - Page 22
1 Q. Kids enjoy it?
2 A. I am sure they do.
3
4 Q. Not because they need it?
5 A. They would be unlikely to eat it if they did not enjoy
6 it.
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can he really answer this? If you imagine a
9 child in a mid-morning break eating a chocolate bar, no
10 doubt they enjoy the taste. It might equally well be
11 because they feel a little hungry, which is the body's way
12 of saying, "I need stoking up until lunchtime", and they
13 may then eat a chocolate bar because they can take the
14 wrapper off and eat it in half a minute and have achieved
15 that object. It might be for some reason, completely.
16
17 Can Mr. Miles really help on this? One child may eat the
18 chocolate bar because they just love chocolate, even if
19 they are not feeling particularly hungry. Can Mr. Miles
20 help?
21
22 MR. MORRIS: You made a assertion about difficult feeders, that
23 advertising can be helpful, portraying the eating of food
24 as a fun occasion or something that Ian Rush does, or
25 whatever; yes?
26
27 I am extremely concerned with this assertion. Maybe, if
28 you feel you are not a nutritionist, the best thing is to
29 ask you if you would like to withdraw that statement?
30 A. No, I do not wish to withdraw it. It was a statement
31 of what I have observed from reading a great deal of
32 research upon the subject.
33
34 Q. If I was to put an alternative point of view, then -- but
35 briefly, because it may be it is a matter for other areas
36 of the case -- that the portrayal of food as entertainment,
37 as something that gives not nourishment, but gratification,
38 is in fact a serious nutritional problem in this country,
39 would you agree with that?
40 A. No. I do not know I would agree with that. I see no
41 reason why an individual food or an eating occasion should
42 not be presented as being enjoyable. In the family, one
43 tries to make eating occasions enjoyable. That is the
44 whole point of a Sunday lunch, for example.
45
46 Q. Are you aware that nutritionists have identified, and
47 people concerned with public health and the Health of the
48 Nation pamphlet, that the main course of degenerative
49 diseases in our society, in terms of hundreds of thousands
50 of people -- heart disease, cancer, whatever, obesity,
51 diabetes -- is the problem of over-nutrition, apart from
52 under-nutrition, that people are consuming too much fat,
53 salt and sugar in their diet; are you aware of that?
54 A. Indeed, I am. I am also aware of the fact that the
55 Health of the Nation identifies that those people often
56 take insufficient exercise. One has to look at the input
57 and the output.
58
59 Q. But in terms of food and that the Health of the Nation has
60 identified advertisers as having some responsibility and
