United Kingdom: Health expert calls for graphic warnings on alcohol packaging

A leading public health expert has called for serious consideration to applying graphic health warnings on the packaging of alcohol and junk food

Packaging News

By Waqas Qureshi

June 14, 2017

Judith Mackay, an adviser to the World Health Organisation who fought against the tobacco lobby in Asia, said a change in packaging could help “de-normalise” excessive alcohol or calorie consumption.

Speaking to the Herald in Scotland, she said with food packaging it may be more tricky as the scale of daily intake of food would be hard to apply to the public generally.

“I think for alcohol it would be easier because we know the harm – it’s not entirely inappropriate to put warnings on label not to drink in pregnancy for example, or not to give children alcohol – so there are some messages that countries could start with that would probably be accepted across the board, before food, but it would be a challenge for both of them.”

She did however, also acknowledge that pricing plays a huge role in deterring excessive drinking, saying “it has the most fundamental effect”.

“Minimum pricing, banning cheap alcohol in supermarkets – price, availability and tax, these are the issues that are going to bring the epidemic down.”