Unhealthy foodwill no longer be able to feature popular children's characters, according to voluntary measures proposed by the Dutch Food Industry Federation (FNLI).

On Thursday, the body announced proposals to restrict food advertising on packaging of less healthy products aimed at children up to 13 years old, aiming to phase it out in 2017.

“The FNLI doesn’t expect that future advertising restrictions will reduce obesity, as there are no proven effects from severe restrictions on advertising aimed at children that have already been introduced over the past decade,” the organisation said on its website.

“But, FNLI understands the public debate on advertising aimed at children and wants to react positively. Obesity is a problem of great concern to the food industry…that can only be overcome by a broad range of measures increasing knowledge about nutrition, healthy diet and exercise.”

The body – which is going to assess how this affects products that might have packaging for distribution in a number of EU countries – wants to restrict cartoon figures being used to package products for children from seven to 13 that contain a lot of fat, sugar or salt, according to reports in the Dutch press.