Photo: Coeliac Association Malta
The Coeliac Association Malta has filed a formal complaint with the Broadcasting Authority over comments aired on the national television station that made light of strictly gluten-free diets.
The incident occurred in an episode of the entertainment programme Bundy Time, which aired on TVM on 2nd May 2026. The patient advocacy group says comments made during the show were extremely insensitive to people who rely on a gluten-free diet to cope with severe medical conditions.
The association strongly condemned the segment in a statement which declared the televised comments “inappropriate and disrespectful to people living with coeliac disease and other gluten-related disorders.”
The association’s main concern was the in-studio reaction to the comments. Instead of the programme’s host or production team challenging, contextualising, or correcting the statements, the comments were met with laughter. The association warned that treating a serious autoimmune disease as a punchline on national television contributes directly to public misunderstanding and exacerbates the ongoing stigma surrounding medically necessary dietary restrictions.
“No medical condition should be laughed at,” the association wrote in its statement, stressing the importance of bringing this broadcasting incident to the general public’s attention.
For those who have coeliac disease and are formally diagnosed with it, the gluten-free diet is no lifestyle choice or a trend but a permanent treatment. Even little amounts of gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye, trigger a very strong immune response attacking the gut lining and thus preventing the absorption of essential nutrients.
When it comes to compliance with the diet, it can cause debilitating symptoms of short-term and long-term health problems, including osteoporosis, infertility, neurological problems, and some intestinal cancers.
Advocates in Malta have been working hard to educate the general public and the local catering industry on the dangers of cross-contamination in commercial kitchens for years. When national media outlets broadcast jokes about the diet, the association said, it undermines these educational campaigns. Such stories hurt patients’ feelings and make it very hard to be taken seriously and treated safely when eating out or attending public functions.
The formal complaint now rests with the Broadcasting Authority, the constitutional body responsible for ensuring that the broadcast is free of offensive content and to avoid showing that one group of people is being stigmatised from being broadcast to others.
The Coeliac Association stressed that broadcasting must carry out more editorial responsibility. It also said they would talk to authorities on the matter.
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