Emma is supporting Cancer Research UK’s new hard-hitting campaign to remove junk food adverts from TV before the 9pm watershed.

Emma recently met her constituent Maggie Hammersley, a Cancer Research UK Champion in Parliament to discuss the “Junk Free TV” campaign and the accompanying research report, “Ad Brake”.

Childhood obesity greatly increases a child’s risk of further obesity and cancer later in life, and research shows children who see junk food advertised on TV eat more unhealthy food.

While such ads have already been removed during children’s TV shows, young viewers are regularly exposed to alluring marketing during other programming, such as family entertainment.

Emma said “In Wolverhampton nearly one in four children are overweight or obese. This greatly increases their chance of being obese as adults, and the chance of them suffering from cancer.

Childhood obesity is becoming a serious problem across the UK and is the biggest preventable cause of cancer after smoking.

As such I am wholeheartedly supporting Cancer Research UK’s campaign to reduce the worrying effect of junk food advertising on children’s lives.

It was a pleasure to meet Maggie in Parliament and I look forward to following her work as a Cancer Research Champion.

As a member of the Health Select Committee, I successfully campaigned for the Government to introduce a sugar tax. The Government needs to follow this up with action on advertising, labelling and marketing if it is serious about reducing levels of childhood obesity.

I fully support Cancer Research UK’s campaign for a comprehensive childhood obesity strategy to help protect children and save more lives in the future.”