India’s Economic Survey 2025-26 calls for ban on junk food ads from 6am to 11pm

DELHI: India is staring down a junk food epidemic, and the government wants to fight back with an advertising ban. The Economic Survey, tabled in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, has pitched a radical proposal: prohibit ultra-processed food advertisements from 6am to 11pm across all media platforms.

The timing is hardly coincidental. India has become one of the world’s fastest-growing markets for ultra-processed foods: those calorie-laden concoctions of burgers, noodles, pizza and soft drinks that increasingly dominate Indian diets. The consequences are written in the waistlines of a growing number of Indians.

Excess weight among children under five has jumped from 2.1 per cent in 2015-16 to 3.4 per cent in 2019-21, the survey notes. More troubling still, over 3.3 crore children in India were obese in 2020, with projections suggesting that figure will balloon to 8.3 crore children by 2035.

The numbers for adults paint an equally grim picture. According to the 2019-21 National Family Health Survey, 24 per cent of Indian women and 23 per cent of Indian men are overweight or obese. Among women aged 15-49 years, 6.4 per cent are obese, whilst among men, 4 per cent are overweight, the survey said.

The pre-budget document doesn’t mince words about the scale of the challenge. To tackle ultra-processed foods, it advocates front-of-pack nutrition labelling for high-fat, sugar and salt foods, with warnings that restrict marketing to children and ensure trade agreements don’t undermine public health policy.

The survey also suggests restrictions on marketing infant and toddler milk and beverages, whilst flagging growing obesity among children.

The proposed marketing ban would run from 0600 hours to 2300 hours across all media, with mandatory enforcement of restrictions on marketing infant and toddler milk and beverages.

India isn’t treading new ground here. The survey points to Chile, which has integrated such laws, along with Norway and the UK, where advertisement restrictions are already in place for ultra-processed foods.

Britain recently banned junk food advertising before 9pm on television and online to reduce children’s exposure and curb childhood obesity. Further action on other marketing activities, including school and college sponsorship of events by ultra-processed food manufacturers, can be designed, the survey said.

Yet India’s regulatory landscape remains muddled. Rule 7 of the Advertisement Code prohibits misleading, unverified, or unhealthy advertisements but doesn’t define “misleading” with measurable or nutrient-based criteria, leaving interpretation subjective and inconsistent.

Similarly, the Central Consumer Protection Authority guidelines for prevention of misleading advertisements (2022) mandate that advertisements must not exaggerate health benefits or exploit children.

Yet they lack clear nutrient thresholds or a framework for identifying misleading claims in food marketing, the survey said, adding that this regulatory ambiguity allows companies marketing ultra-processed foods to continue making vague health, energy, or nutrition cues without violating any clearly defined standard, highlighting a critical policy gap that needs reform.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. India is one of the fastest-growing markets for ultra-processed food sales, contributing to chronic diseases worldwide and widening health inequalities.

The survey lays bare the commercial triumph of junk food in India. Sales of ultra-processed foods grew more than 150 per cent between 2009 and 2023. Retail sales surged from $0.9 billion in 2006 to nearly $38 billion in 2019, a 40-fold rise. It is during the same period that obesity has nearly doubled in both men and women, the survey said.

The document advocates a multi-pronged approach to tackle the rising consumption of ultra-processed foods (popularly known as junk foods), which includes burgers, noodles, pizza, soft drinks, and the like, warning it is contributing to chronic diseases worldwide and widening health inequalities.

Improving diets cannot depend solely on consumer behaviour change, the survey argues. It will require coordinated policies across food systems that regulate ultra-processed food production, promote healthier and more sustainable diets and marketing.

The gauntlet has been thrown. Whether India’s policymakers have the stomach to take on the junk food industry remains to be seen.