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EU calls for voluntary restrictions on food ads aimed at children-----------------------------------------------------------------The European Commission is calling on food manufacturers to adopt avoluntary code of conduct on advertising aimed at children as a step inthe fight against obesity. The commission, the executive arm of theEuropean Union, said in a report to the European Parliament issuedWednesday that it would review the measures taken by the industry andjudge how effective they were in 2010, and then change them ifnecessary.'The commission's preference, at this stage, is to keep the existingvoluntary approach at the EU level due to the fact that it canpotentially act quickly and effectively to tackle rising overweight andobesity levels,' the report said. In Europe, as many as one in threechildren under 11 years and one in five adolescents is overweight,according to the World Health Organization, which calls childhoodobesity 'an acute health crisis.'Commercials encourage children to eat poorly, experts say. As a result,a number of countries have taken measures to curb or eliminate theadvertising. Overweight and obese children ate about twice as much afterwatching ads for food, a British study found in April, supportingearlier findings by the U.S. Institute of Medicine.