It looks like Burger King in Spain is in big trouble following their recent spate of adverts promoting an extra large Whopper Burger. The Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs is not amused and have formally informed Burger King that the agreement that they had signed in 2005 is no longer valid. The Agreement that was purely voluntary was a basically a promise by many big fast food restaurants that they would not promote extra large portions in their advertising campaigns.

McDonalds also signed up and the agreement held until this new advertising campaign by Burger King. The move could now mean that legislation regarding the advertising of fast food may be enacted to protect the country form the harmful effects of obesity.

In the meantime the Ministry of Health in Spain has made new agreements with other restaurants chains that are continuing to abide by the voluntary rules. Obesity is a serious problem in Spain like the rest of Europe where levels of obesity are almost 15% and nearly 40% are overweight.

The EU is encouraging Health Ministries to tackle the obesity problem on many different fronts and fast food restaurants have to play their part too if the problem is going to be addressed. It has been seen that when a fast food restaurant moves into an area and starts to get popular the obesity rates start to rise. This is having a negative effect all over Europe and health bills are rising in Hospitals.

Many people however say that the decision about what people eat should be left to them and that the state should not intervene; but the problem now is that the state can’t afford not to intervene as the cost of obesity will mean higher taxes and low productivity for the nation.

Ukmedix will be following this story and will report on any new updates.