Health organisations issue plea to UK Chancellor for obesity tackling legislation

A collective of 64 health organisations and medical experts have issued an open letter to the Chancellor, urging the government to stick to key health reforms targeting child obesity, writes Neill Barston.

According to national statistics, the health crisis of an overweight population has cost the UK economy £12 billion a year in treatment, and a wider estimated hidden bill of more than £100bn in terms of lost productivity, care costs and sickness rates, equating to around 3-4% national GDP reduction at a critical time of general economic stagnation.

Consequently, the medical experts have highlighted, that reforms to food manufacturing – including within confectionery, snacks and bakery markets is required urgently, to reduce key high fat, salt and sugar ranges that are staples in many British diets.

As our title has previously covered, many major manufacturers have increasingly explored product reformulation in recent years, with reported cuts within food and drink ranges becoming increasingly apparent, according to the national FDF trade body.

However, figures for confectionery and snacks have not been forthcoming in recent years, with the last available data several showing that in many instances, chocolate ranges in particular, had maintained high levels of sugar in many instances, with consumers seemingly less eager to accept sugar-reduced ranges, as has been seen with the commercial failure of several high profile offerings from major manufacturers in recent years. 

In response, an open letter to the Chancellor, coordinated by the Obesity Health Alliance, major health charities, medical royal colleges, campaign groups, healthcare professionals and patient voices are urging the Government to protect, not weaken, evidence-based policies to improve the nation’s poor diet and to stop children’s health being dragged into cost-of-living politics.

The collective acknowledged that while many families are facing considerable financial pressure, research has found that more than 80% of people want food companies to do more to make healthy food affordable, and only 3% of people believe health regulations are responsible for inflation.

As a result, the coalition is now calling on ministers to take three immediate steps: · Publish a formal consultation on mandatory health reporting before the summer recess, with a commitment to implementation next year across all relevant sectors.

· Introduce legislation for the Healthy Food Standard – including mandatory reporting and mandatory health targets – within this Parliament.

· Apply the updated Nutrient Profiling Model to advertising and promotions restrictions, with a clear and defensible mechanism for implementation, ensuring this work does not delay progress on the Healthy Food Standard.

The organisations caution that delaying or diluting these measures would undermine the central ambition of the NHS 10‑Year Health Plan: to stop people becoming ill in the first place and to help create the healthiest generation of children ever.

They argue that action to improve the food environment should not be presented as conflicting with taking action to help people with the cost-of-living. Weakening public health policy is a false economy – it will not cut household bills, they stress, but it will leave children and low‑income families paying the highest price through worsening health.

As the alliance noted, the call comes amid growing concern over the deepening food affordability crisis, following The Food Foundation’s latest Broken Plate report, which reveals that the poorest families with children would need to spend 85% of their disposable income to afford a healthy diet. The report also shows the price gap between healthier and less healthy food is now at its widest in more than a decade, raising further alarm at a time when food prices are expected to rise again in the coming months.

The coalition signals that the Government must not repeat the mistakes of previous obesity‑policy delays, which have cost the country valuable time while diet‑related ill health has continued to rise and health inequalities have widened. New NHS figures show that more than 6,000 children were treated at specialist obesity clinics in England last year, including children as young as four.

The letter comes amid growing concern that key measures promised last year could be delayed or weakened – including applying the updated Nutrient Profiling Model to advertising and promotions restrictions, and introducing a world‑leading Healthy Food Standard, which would require large food businesses to report on and improve the healthiness of their sales.

Government analysis estimates that applying the updated Nutrient Profiling Model would deliver £36.9 billion in health and economic benefits over 25 years, reducing childhood obesity by 110,000 cases and adult obesity by 520,000 cases.

Health benefits
As the alliance concluded, additional benefits from reducing the intake of free sugars include preventing dental caries in children and adults – dental decay is the most common cause of hospitalisations in young children. By contrast, the total implementation cost to industry over the same period is estimated to be less than £3 billion, much of which the Government confirms can be offset by promoting healthier products. The proposed mandatory Healthy Food Standard would help to create a level playing field for all large food businesses and would result in around £17 billion in annual cost savings to society, including saving the NHS £2 billion a year.

Katharine Jenner, Executive Director of the Obesity Health Alliance, commented:  “The Government’s prevention moonshot risks failing before launch if the very policies needed to deliver it are watered down before they even begin.

“Families are under huge financial pressure, but blaming health regulation for rising food prices is a distraction. There is no evidence these measures would push up prices – and no evidence that scrapping them would make food cheaper.

“Weakening these measures now would be a false economy. It won’t make food cheaper, but it will drive up the long‑term costs of preventable illness – from various cancers, heart disease and type 2 diabetes to dental decay – for families and for the NHS,” adding that government ministers must stand firm on previous pledges to deliver on addressing children’s health.