Glantz SA, et al. - Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are “associated with common risk factors, such as tobacco use, alcohol abuse, an unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and environmental carcinogens’’ , and corporations actively and consciously working to increase the intake of unhealthy products to maximize profits increase exposure to these risk factors. Thus, it is required to understand how unhealthy food companies impact advertising restrictions.

• Policy dystopia model (PDM) was applied by Lauber and colleagues to assess food industry opposition to London’s 2018 proposed ban of advertising of foods high in fat, sugar, and/or salt across Transport for London (TfL), a major advertising channel.

• The proposed advertising restrictions were opposed by most food and advertising industry respondents, except for some smaller businesses.

• Consistent with the PDM, many of comments contested the proof favoring the ban, encouraged ineffective voluntary approaches, exaggerated expenses of implementation and to society, and underplayed advantages of the advertising ban.

• Of 81 exception applications, two-thirds (54) were accepted by TfL.

• In addition, TfL staff members accountable for enforcing the policy and allowing exemptions belonged to TfL’s advertising team and were also answerable for meeting advertising revenue targets.

• Progress on decreasing NCDs will need understanding, anticipating, and countering efforts of corporations (ones that profit by selling unhealthy products) to block effective NCD policies.