Photos of infants to be banned from baby formula packaging

Photographs of infants are to be banned from baby formula packaging under new European Parliament rules on the labelling and content of baby milk and foods for medical purposes.

The new rules provide for greater clarity between foods for normal consumption, and foods for specific groups such as babies, the infirm and the elderly. They also cover some low-calorie diets which involve total diet replacement for weight control.

The rules are also designed to counter less-than-desired practice in presentation and advertising of infant formula milk replacement.

Labelling of such formula and follow-on formula must not “include pictures of infants, or other pictures or text which may idealise the use of such formula” in order “not to discourage breast-feeding”, the rules say.

“Infants, young children and seriously ill people are clearly not consumers like any others and it is our duty as legislator to fix stricter rules to govern, for example, the composition and labelling of foodstuffs intended for them,” said the rapporteur Frédérique Ries after the vote.