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The Pre-school Learning Alliance welcomes Baroness Thornton’s Television Advertising (Food) Bill

NEWS RELEASE

18 June 2007

The Pre-school Learning Alliance welcomes Baroness Thornton’s Television Advertising (Food) Bill

The Pre-school Learning Alliance, England’s leading voluntary provider of childcare and a supporter of the Children’s Food campaign, has welcomed Baroness Thornton’s Bill to introduce a 21.00 watershed for junk food tv adverts and highlights the pressing need for greater Government investment in the area of early years nutrition.

Steve Alexander, Chief Executive of the Alliance said,

“Limiting opportunities for advertisers to promote unhealthy food to children is a key component for improving the overall eating habits of the nation.

For the Bill to have maximum impact, the Alliance believes it needs to be complemented by a range of other healthy eating initiatives which will help children and families make the right choices as early as possible. Intervention in the early years is crucial as it helps to influence and change children’s eating habits and attitudes to food – some of which are genetically pre-determined – thus potentially leading to health benefits in the longer term.

The Alliance believes there is a pressing need for more support, advice and resources on the the dietary needs of the under 5s to be made available to parents and early years practitioners. Despite the key role of the early years in shaping taste and eating habits, investment in this area palls in comparison to that investment directed towards improving the eating habits of statutory school age children.

The Pre-school Learning Alliance’s Feeding Young Imaginations campaign, developed in conjunction with the British Nutrition Foundation, supports early years practitioners and parents of very young children with accessible nutritional information and resources. Since last November the Alliance has been running free training courses on all aspects of healthy eating for the under 5’s to early years practitioners in regeneration areas throughout the country with support from Tesco.

However more investment is needed in order for programmes such as Feeding Young Imaginations to reach and benefit the greatest number of children and families. The social and financial cost of not making this commitment in the early stages of a child’s life is too high for the Government to ignore.”

ENDS

For further information please contact:

Kate Summerside
Pre-school Learning Alliance
T: 020 7697 2502
Out of hours press calls: 07956 499621
E: Kate Summerside

Notes for Editors:

  1. The Pre-school Learning Alliance is the largest voluntary sector provider of quality affordable childcare and education in England.
  2. Through direct provision and its membership of 15,000 nurseries, sessional pre-schools and parent and toddler groups, the Alliance supports over 800,000 children and their families in England. The Alliance also develops and runs family learning programmes, offers information and advice, runs acclaimed training and accreditation programmes and campaigns to influence early years policy and practice.
  3. For information about the Pre-school Learning Alliance, visit our website: www.pre-school.org.uk
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