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Since its launch in 2016, 47.9 million children have visited beano.com, which includes frequent references to well-known high fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) brands.

Health campaigners are disappointed with Beano’s willingness to showcase so many junk food brands and to put these brands right at the front of children’s minds, suggesting that a chocolate, fizzy drink or burger brand is ‘cool’.

Kat Jenner, director of nutrition, research, campaigns, and policy at the Obesity Health Alliance, said: “It is an incredibly irresponsible way of promoting unhealthy food.”

While Boyd Swinburn, professor of population nutrition and global health at the University of Auckland and honorary professor at the Global Obesity Centre in Melbourne, believes that the company is being ‘naïve’ in giving ‘free advertising’ to HFSS brands and products.

With estimates that 22% of reception aged schoolchildren are overweight or obese, rising to 37% of children by year 6, health experts are also deeply concerned.

Henry Dimbleby, lead author of the National Food Strategy, which called for a salt and sugar tax on processed food, added: “People at Beano might be thinking: ‘Oh, well, you know, it's just a little bit of fun, that's what the kids like.’ But I just think it is all pervasive in society. This stuff invades every element of their lives.”

Beano responded: “We take enormous care in what we present to children particularly around health and wellbeing,” adding that its website also runs some positive content about fruit, vegetables, and healthy eating, including the Ultimate Vegetarian Quiz.