EFA News published a commentary by Pietro Paganini on the UK’s new restrictions on HFSS (High Fat, Sugar and Salt) product advertising, effective from 5 January 2026. A critical analysis questioning the effectiveness of an increasingly rigid and ideological approach to food policy. 

Read the full article in Italian on EFA News or the English translation below.

With the entry into force, on 5 January 2026, of the ban on advertising HFSS (High Fat, Sugar and Salt) products before 9 p.m. on television and at any time online, the United Kingdom is taking one of the most restrictive regulatory steps globally in the field of food policy.

The stated objective -to reduce children’s exposure to promotional messages and tackle childhood obesity – is legitimate. The chosen method, however, reflects an ideological, weakly scientific and poorly evidence-based approach, relying on regulatory shortcuts and struggling to address obesity and cardiovascular diseases in their true biological, behavioural, social and cultural complexity.

The paradox is evident. Alongside Italy, the UK stands out for having taken the issue of childhood obesity seriously, yet it risks addressing it in the worst possible way, creating a precedent that could become a dangerous regulatory benchmark, closely watched beyond national borders. The first critical issue concerns the tool being used: the Nutrient Profiling Model (NPM), developed between 2004 and 2005, which classifies very different products as “less healthy” based on an algebraic sum of “positive” and “negative” nutrients and which also underpins the Nutri-Score. This reductionist approach continues to assess foods as isolated entities, ignoring consumption context, portion sizes, frequency, lifestyles and individual responsibility.

The practical consequences are clear. As with the Nutri-Score, many traditional products – including foods that are emblematic of European and Italian food culture – risk being penalised not because of overconsumption, but because of their intrinsic composition. This results in a compression of competition and a significant barrier to entry for new HFSS products, which become effectively invisible from a communication perspective. Reformulation is often presented as the solution, but it is not always technically feasible, nor culturally neutral. While the regulation formally distinguishes between product advertising and brand advertising, allowing “brand-only” campaigns provided they are not linked to HFSS products, the so-called consumer perception test introduces a grey area that increases legal uncertainty and reinforces a climate of defensive caution, particularly for SMEs.

Even more delicate are the developments on the horizon. In the UK, proposals and discussions are underway regarding “healthiness targets” for large retailers, based on average health scores of product ranges calculated through sales-weighted nutritional metrics. Under this framework, supermarkets could be monitored – and potentially sanctioned – if they fail to meet aggregate targets for sugar, fat and salt.

It is important to clarify that these proposals do not currently amount to a ban on the sale of individual products. Their potential impact, however, is far from neutral. Shifting regulation from communication to the architecture of supply means exerting indirect yet systemic pressure on businesses, encouraging forced reformulation and discouraging the market presence of foods that do not conform to predefined administrative parameters. The result is a market distortion that tends to favour large retailers and operators capable of engineering products to comply with state rules, to the detriment of traditional products, cultural supply chains and culinary diversity. This mechanism risks placing many companies – unable or unwilling to alter their recipes – under severe strain, or even pushing them out of the market altogether.

Overall, this trajectory reveals a troubling ideological drift: away from prevention policies based on information, education and individual responsibility, and towards a progressive engineering of the food market. The risk is the standardisation of recipes, a compression of entrepreneurial creativity and a regulatory selection of products, where survival depends not on consumer choice but on compliance with criteria set by public authorities. This represents a shift towards the idea of a “guided taste”, if not an outright state-imposed taste.

Unlike the UK, Italy has recently introduced its first comprehensive law on obesity, choosing a different path: education, prevention and responsibility rather than rigid classifications and blanket bans. An imperfect approach, but one more consistent with the complexity of the phenomenon and with the idea that health cannot be built by decree. The British case is not merely a national issue; it is a political and cultural test for Europe. The fundamental question remains open: are we truly addressing the complexity of obesity, or are we replacing it with dangerous regulatory shortcuts that risk producing more side effects than lasting benefits?