Advertising watchdog backs salt-warning ads
The advertising standards authority (ASA) has rejected complaints that a Government health campaign warning of the dangers of salt is misleading.
Last year’s Sid the Slug campaign featured a slug warning that “too much salt can lead to a heart attack” and that salt is “bad for your heart”.
But the Salt Manufacturers’ Association (SMA) claimed the ads misleadingly implied salt was bad for your heart and could kill you, while a member of the public also said they did not make clear that excessive salt consumption only increased the risk of heart problems.
However, the ASA has today rejected both complaints on the basis that there is enough evidence to suggest that salt can raise the risk of high blood pressure, which in turn increases the risk of stroke and death from cardiovascular diseases.
The advertisers quoted the Salt and Health report by the scientific advisory committee on nutrition (SACN) and also produced a letter from Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson, backing the link between high salt consumption and high blood pressure.
Although there was disagreement on the recommended daily allowance for salt, the ASA did not believe this “was significant enough to counter advice from the official public health body that habitual consumption of high levels of salt posed a risk to heart health”.
As a result, today’s ruling concluded that “the advertisements were unlikely to mislead”.
The Food Standards Agency welcomed the ruling, saying the ads were intended as “an amusing way to alert people to a very serious health message”.
SMA general secretary Peter Sherratt expressed his disappointment at the ruling, but said the association was “delighted” at the ASA’s acceptance of the lack of consensus over the link between salt and high blood pressure.
“There is now growing recognition that persuading people to adopt a healthy diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables is by far the best way of achieving population-wide reductions in blood pressure,” he added.
