News.Scotland.Org

January, 2

In a move to control the rising consumption of junk foods by children, it is decided that from now advertisements related to junk foods, fizzy drinks and chocolates will be banned from being telecasted during children programmes in UK. It is known that these days children are carried away by these ads and consuming these junks foods resulting to their obesity. To put a check to these bad eating habits, and to control the high rate of child obesity in the UK, Ofcom, the communication regulator took this decision here today.

The decision though was taken for the better health of kids, but those who are not happy with this decision are the broadcasters who are a bit tensed with this announcement. As this step would disturb their earnings and would force them to face a loss of about £39 million as advertising revenue. This ban will mean that no ads of any food and drink targeted to kids during the telecast of these programmes. It is also predicted that with such a step taken it may have an affect to the sales of these products.

Several previous research and studies conducted on the health and lifestyle of people of UK has highlighted the bad eating habits they follow resulting to a high rate of obesity cases. Specially one of the recent studies showed how children are embracing these junk foods and substituting it with their breakfast. It was seen that children are spending major part of their pocket money on these foods and fizzy drinks adding to their health woes.

And with the modern day television wooing kids with their attractive ads is making this problem to grow more. So experts feel that this step will benefit to some extent to control the consumption of these food items by children. Meanwhile there are also plans to roll out a pre-9pm ban on all TV adverts for such junk foods, as these soaps too have a huge young viewer-ship and such ads attracts adults too. As all know that advertisement plays a vital role to what people buy, and banning such ads will help a lot to avoid children from falling into this obesity trap.

There are mixed response to this decision as some considers it as a healthy move, while few suggest it as of no use. But now time will tell whether this announcement is of any benefit. But that’s for sure that now children will not find the adverts of junk food and chocolates while watching their favourite shows like X Factor, Ant and Dec, and Coronation Street.

Scotland, Jan 2: The new urban sports centre that is named as Transgression Park will be unveiled within few days is expected to add more attraction to Edinburgh. The sports centre located at the city centre shopping mall will function as the skate park, dancing arena and BMX track. The centre is designed by professional BMX rider Dave Sowerby.

The skate park of this centre is considered as the highest in the UK and it also include an extended dance area, shop and a café. The stunt school and the free running area will be added to it in the future. The area used for the construction of the centre is earlier used for conducting art exhibitions, events at the Leith Festival and for a boxing club. An annual membership fee of £25 will be collected from the users apart from the entry fees. The skate park will be open seven days a week from 10am to 10pm.

According to the director Ken Smith “The new skate park will fulfil the requirement of those disappointed skate buffs over the continuing internal strife over the new public skate park. The nearest skate park is located in Dundee but we will provide a wide range of facilities. The Ocean Terminal is taking a risk but we are confident that we will bear fruit in our venture and will prove that there is demand for this kind of facility in Edinburgh.”

While commenting on this Albie Clark representing the Focus skateboard shop said: “I’m sure that this venture will become a great success. Edinburgh needs a proper skating facility. For many years now the public space in the city centre is being squeezed. It has been criticised that the private money is used for providing facility for the fashionable sports like skateboarding, break dancing and free running.”

Previous year skaters were saddened by the city council’s decision to neglect the proposal for £750,000 Skate Park. The new skate park will raise the hope of all the skate buffs in Edinburgh.