Sir, – Diarmaid Ferriter’s article, “ As Popeyes opens in Ireland, it’s clear we’re becoming a fast food nation ,” (Opinion, June 19th), is a sombre yet accurate picture of Ireland’s food environment in 2026.
Over several months, there has been a proliferation of global fast-food chains opening in Ireland, often arriving with fanfare and online promotions through paid-for influencers who promote their openings to their social media followers, the vast majority of whom are impressionable adolescents.
These openings come at a time when Ireland is already experiencing a generational health crisis of obesity , with half of the adult population either living with obesity or overweight, according to the 2024 Healthy Ireland survey.
What is even more worrying is that the Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative found that one in five primary schoolchildren is overweight or living with obesity.
The arrival of these new openings is another nail in the coffin in the fight for good public health in Ireland. The high concentration of these fast-food chains along motorways, high streets and cities further intensifies the obesogenic environment whereby our physical, economic and social surroundings promote unhealthy weight gain.
Not only is it a public health crisis, but a social justice matter, too. Lower socioeconomic areas tend to have more “food swamps”, areas with more fast-food outlets and fewerplaces to buy fresh ingredients.
For children and young people, it is impossible to escape the pull of unhealthy food. According to the Safefood report, Our Kids’ Exposure to Unhealthy Food Marketing Online, children see up to 19 unhealthy food posts every hour they spend online, one every four minutes.
Adolescents face a wallpaper of unhealthy food across their physical and digital lives, skewing the food pyramid and ultimately creating an unhealthy relationship with food that will have lifelong implications. Without State intervention, Ireland’s childhood obesity epidemic will only worsen.
To reverse this trend, it is imperative the Government introduces a ban on online junk food advertising, including from influencers, extends the broadcast advertising ban of high fat, salt and sugar food products to 9pm and introduces zoning legislation, “No Fry Zones”, to prohibit the placement of unhealthy food outlets within 400 metres of primary and secondary schools. – Yours, etc,