The National Heart Forum, whose members include the National Children's Bureau, the NUT, Sustain, the British Medical Association, and Which?, is preparing an application for judicial review against Ofcom over the consultation, which it considers 'unlawful and conspicuously unfair'.
Ofcom's consultation on new restrictions to food and drink advertising to children ends on 30 June, but the regulator has already said it refuses to consider a pre-watershed ban.
Ofcom has said that to introduce a ban on TV advertising on foods high in fat, sugar and salt before 9pm would be a 'disproportionate' burden on broadcasters.
But the forum said Ofcom's failure to consider this option was 'skewed, unfair and relies on misquoting statistical evidence'.
Jane Landon, deputy chief executive of the forum, said, 'We are dismayed that Ofcom has weighed industry profits against children's health, compromised this important consultation and forced us to take this unprecedented step of seeking a fair consultation through the courts.'
She called for Ofcom to consider the 9pm watershed option 'fairly and equally' alongside the other suggested options, which include a ban on advertise-ments for junk food during programmes such as 'The Simpsons'.
A British Heart Foundation online survey published last week (23 May) found that 68 per cent of parents wanted a ban on junk food advertising before 9pm. Only 7 per cent were against a ban. Seventy-five per cent of parents said that they believed junk food advertising on television influenced their children's food choices.
Gill Francis, director of children's development at the National Children's Bureau, said, 'It's no use simply restricting food and drink advertising during TV programmes aimed at under-nines, when we know that large numbers of children regularly watch so-called adult programming like sport and soaps.'
The BMA, which has been calling for a regulation of advertising of unhealthy food to children, said childhood obesity was 'soaring out of control', and that it was 'time for an open consultation offering firm action, not just half-measures'.