The government has decided against placing strict regulations on food and alcohol advertising, reports Business Day.

Recommendations for regulation had been put forward by an influential government-appointed committee, the National Preventative Health Taskforce, which included University of Melbourne’s professor Rob Moodie and professor of health policy at Curtin’s University Mike Danube as members.

The governments recent response to the final report was to put forward strategies to tackle the growing economic and health burden that comes from obesity, tobacco and alcohol – but it stopped short of ending self-regulation.

Scott McClellan, CEO of Australian Association of National Advertisers commented that the governments response to the report, which was published in September, could have been far worse. But he said the battle was far from over and that the AANA would continue to argue that there was no substantive evidence to support the claim that advertising or sponsorship encouraged people to eat or drink in a harmful way.

The Communications Council chief executive, Daniel Leesong, said that while the report gave the self-regulatory system the tick, the industry should remember it was being closely scrutinised by government.

Were being watched very closely, so it would be prudent for everyone in the industry to be as engaged as possible, he said.