Contending that junk foods did not carry nutritional awareness, Indian Minister for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury warned of imposing a ban on advertisements promoting such products.
“They (private enterprises) have a social commitment. They have to include (nutritional awareness),” Chowdhury told reporters on the sidelines of a conference on food security.
She said junk food companies have to possess social commitment “and they better deliver on those or I will ban them. I am quite capable of that.” The minister insisted that urban areas have “no nutritional awareness” and even children of big schools have “calcium deficiency”.
She said her ministry was planning to send teams once in every six months to schools to check the nutritional levels of children.
“We have written to Education Ministry in this regard,” the minister said.
The ministry will also convene a meeting of representatives of various state governments here this month to discuss all these issues, she added.