Ireland’s growing obsession with health and risk warnings may be linked to the rise in anxiety in society, Ciara Kelly has warned.

The Newstalk Breakfast presenter was speaking after public health Dr Catherine Conlon called for the introduction of health warnings on junk food.

Writing in the Irish Examiner, the former director of human health and nutrition at Safefood said ultra-processed junk foods should carry similar warnings to those seen on tobacco products and may soon be introduced from alcohol.

Sugar skull on the wood background. Image: Simon Kadula / Alamy

Ciara said she does like to know what is in her food – but is concerned about introducing more public health warnings.

“I am one of those people that actually looks at the calories and things and if I walk into Starbucks and I see a muffin is 600 calories, I tend not to eat – or I eat it making a conscious choice knowing what I am having,” she said.

“I quite like knowing things, but I am a little tired of the constant warnings.

“I understand and I totally support things like warnings on cigarettes but there is a reason for that – cigarettes will kill every second person that smokes them.

“But now we appear to have mission creep, so we have alcohol which is also a Class A carcinogen so I can see why we might argue that.

“Now we are creeping towards food as well, and viewing the world through the prism of risk constantly and this kind of mission creep - constant warnings and public health mission-creep - I don’t actually believe it is good for us.

“At my core, I believe there is an association between the kind of epidemic of anxiety we have and the constant warnings about everything and the constant permacrises we appear to live in.”

“I think the media and public health and things we have created - because we don’t live in the society we once lived in that was all famine and war and pestilence and if we got past the age of five we were lucky - because we don’t live in that anymore, we still have that anxiety there and we look for focuses for it and I just wish we would shut up.”

The Newstalk Breakfast presenter said she likes her information to come without warnings.

“Then I can make my own decisions,” she said. “I don’t like being told that I shouldn’t constantly.”

Shane Coleman in the Newstalk studio. Image: Newstalk

Fellow presenter Shane Coleman said he might have agreed with Ciara until he read Dr Conlon’s piece.

“She makes a very persuasive argument,” he said.

“She talks about Chile for example, where they actually have done this and she said labels have had a huge impact on the purchase of ultra-processed food in Chile, but an even bigger result was that the regulations made children ask their parents not to buy the products.

“I seem to remember you in this studio saying we infantilise children in this country; that we should be trusting them and accepting their maturity.

“If we have evidence that, in another country, kids are saying, ‘Do you know what, don’t buy this stuff because it’s actually junk food and it is bad for us,’ how can that be a bad thing?"

A selection of processed food and drink. Image: Russ witherington / Alamy

Ciara said her issue is about living with constant warnings, from public health to the weather.

“We spend our lives hitting people between the eyes with constant risk and warning and I don’t believe it is good for us and I am a little bit tired,” she said.