WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- The government should impose ''traffic light'' labeling to warn consumers about obesity-causing food and drink products if New Zealand companies won't do it voluntarily, a parliamentary committee said Friday.

After a 10-month inquiry, a majority of lawmakers on Parliament's health select committee recommended a system of red, yellow and green labels to indicate the levels of fat, salt and sugar in products. The committee also recommended guidelines for food-related advertising.

More than half of New Zealand's 4 million people are either overweight or obese, including more than 30 percent of children, according to Health Ministry figures.

The red label -- to be used for food such as cakes, pies and chocolates -- would warn that the products should only be consumed occasionally. Yellow-labeled foods such as pizza should be eaten ''sometimes,'' while green-labeled products such as low-fat yogurt could be eaten daily.

The committee warned that obesity threatened to overwhelm the health system.

''Tackling the obesity epidemic in New Zealand is imperative,'' the committee said. ''Comprehensive, coordinated action by the government is needed.''

The committee also wants targets set for advertising, marketing and promotion of food and drink, saying there needs to be the threat of regulation if voluntary measures don't work.

It recommended a ban on television advertising of ''energy dense'' food before 8:30 p.m. each night -- when younger people are supposed to stop watching.

The Obesity Action Coalition said simply appealing to the food, drink and advertising industries to help fight obesity would not work.

''The time for asking the industry nicely is over,'' coalition director Leigh Sturgiss said. ''We need a ban on the marketing of unhealthy food and drinks to children.''

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lol, health nazis. they can fall off a cliff. nobody is commiting genocide on my pizza.

I actually agree with the article, and it's only a matter of time before a similar system is introduced to Australia.

we have a similar system here in england all food has to have labels telling you the RDA of such things as fat, sugar, salt etc.. one of the more useful things the government has done

I would expect most countries require nutrition information on the labels. From what I can tell, this is more like color coding to tell people how healthy the food is (or isn't).

Stupid. Want to fix obesity? Make gym classes stricter and ban ingredients from the country. Any food item with a certain ingredient cannot be made in or imported into the country. Add to the list of banned ingredients as deemed necessary. Problem solved.

I think it means somthing similar to ... which is good. Simple. Needs to happen here in Ontario ...

I agree. Though this may increase the prices of the foods being produced a bit, it far outweighs the outcome if we don't do it. Restaurants were complaining and bitching about the price increase of food with the ban on trans-fat based cooking oils and when they were forced to use a healthier cooking oil, the prices didn't climb at all.

They just do not want to spend an extra few cents getting healthier cooking oil.