Late last month, the health organisation had said it would look to challenge Ofcom in the courts about choosing not to further consult on the advertising of junk food to children before a 9pm watershed.
The action was being considered by a group of public bodies spearheaded by the NHF, whose members include: the British Heart Foundation and the British Medical Association; the National Union of Teachers; the National Children's Bureau; Which?; and a number of health, medical and consumer organisations.
The NHF had slammed the media regulator for what it said was putting "the broadcast industry's profits before children's health".
The group said it had no option but to take Ofcom to a process of "judicial review", effectively preparing court action against the regulator.
The NHF claimed that it was "unlawful and conspicuously unfair of the regulator to exclude from full and fair consideration a 9pm watershed for junk food advertising consultation in its current consultation on TV food advertising to children".
The NFT has heralded the claimed turnaround by the regulator as "a victory for health and children's welfare campaigners".
Jane Landon, deputy chief executive of the NHF, said: "We are happy that Ofcom has made these significant concessions and made it unnecessary to take them to court. We are therefore withdrawing our application for judicial review."
Landon added: "We have been stunned by Ofcom's attitude to this consultation, the cynical way it has weighed the protection of advertising revenues over the protection of children's health and the shabby tactics it has used to try and frighten us into abandoning our case. It remains to be seen when the final proposals are published, whether the concessions squeezed out of Ofcom by our legal challenge amount to a genuine willingness to consider the 9pm option.
"If not, we do not discount the possibility of a future action being necessary."
Ofcom was not available for comment regarding the statement.
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