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Category: Health

  • Olivia Blake – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    Olivia Blake – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    The speech made by Olivia Blake, the Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam, in the House of Commons on 27 May 2021.

    Like almost everyone speaking in the debate today, I support measures to ensure that people have a healthy relationship with the food that they eat. However, healthy eating habits cannot simply be measured on weighing scales or counted in calories. Today, we are facing a mental health crisis, one element of which is the rising epidemic of eating disorders, including obesity.

    I fear that our strategy falls well short of the social and mental health support needed to help people manage a healthy relationship with food. I am talking about those who have any conditions relating to weight management, whether that is diabetes or heart disease, or an eating disorder. I hope that the new funding for services will see those approaches supported.

    While I am fully supportive of interventions such as restrictions on advertising and work to improve the diet of the nation, I remain very concerned about certain aspects of the strategy. Before the pandemic, hospital admissions were increasing, especially among teenagers. In 2019-20, we saw a sharp 32% increase on the previous year to more than 21,000 cases, nearly 5,000 of which were children. In addition to hospital admissions between February 2020 and January 2021, the eating disorder charity Beat reported a massive 173% surge in demand for its services. During that time, we saw no corresponding rise in the levels of funding going to eating disorder services. I have sat with eating disorder specialists who have told me that the money that is available often fails to get to the frontline. One doctor I spoke to said that his service was originally designed for 60 children, but now serves 280, with inadequate funding for those places.

    I know that NHS trusts are also struggling with non-specialist in-patient services for children. The rising demand means that they just do not have the expertise available to treat in-patients with eating disorders properly, with many waiting for urgent beds for children in crisis in any specialist unit anywhere in the country. We still see a situation in adult services where there are no waiting time targets for support for eating disorders.

    I am highlighting this dire situation because one measure of the Government’s obesity strategy involves calorie labelling on menus. Among those who will be reading those menus will be people with eating disorders. There is a wealth of research that shows that calorie labelling can exacerbate unhealthy relationships with food and can be a predictor of the onset of eating disorders. In trying to fix one problem, there is a real danger that Ministers will make another far worse, the costs of which are not trivial. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental health problem, and people who suffer from them are at increased risk of suicide and self-harm. While it is true that half of those with eating disorders recover, 20% remain in a chronic condition.

    We should look at obesity in the round. Balanced nutritious meals, promoting healthy diets such as Mediterranean diets, and healthy levels of exercise are far more important ways of maintaining a healthy weight. I urge the Government to rethink and revisit that aspect of the plan, come up with a solution that balances the needs of all. If we really want to promote healthy eating habits, calories on menus are not necessarily the way to do it for the whole population and risk making a very bad situation even worse for those suffering from or at risk of developing eating disorders. I say this as someone with type 2 diabetes. I have lost weight in order to manage my diabetes. There is a real issue with anxiety around calories and weighing out food. More needs to be done to recognise these anxieties and mental health issues.

  • Jonathan Lord – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    Jonathan Lord – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    The speech made by Jonathan Lord, the Conservative MP for Woking, in the House of Commons on 27 May 2021.

    While I welcome many aspects of the Government’s obesity strategy, today I want to argue against the Government’s outlined proposals to restrict TV and online advertising for high- fat, high-sugar and high-salt foods.

    These proposals are blunt tools that will have little or no impact on obesity. The Government assess that both the TV watershed ban and the full online ban will lead to just a 4.5 daily calorie reduction among overweight children. That is completely inconsequential compared with initiatives such as The Daily Mile or Couch to 5K, which have the potential to increase calorific expenditure by about 100 calories a day, or targeted, community-based approaches, such as the Health, Exercise, Nutrition for the Really Young—HENRY—programme in Leeds or the Three Area Project in Wakefield. Those two programmes are based on a holistic approach. They address education, activity levels and food inequality, and have had measurable success.

    Commentators might argue that the proposed bans do not matter, but they have large adverse impacts on broadcasters, online news media, advertising and production companies, food and drink companies, retailers and the hospitality sector. Advertisers have made it clear that this ad spend and investment will not be rerouted back through other channels but could leave the UK market altogether. The bans will reduce the advertising revenue that media reinvest in programming and content. They will prevent food and retail companies and the hospitality trade from communicating with their customers. They will impact jobs and remove most incentives food manufacturers have to invest in healthier alternatives in this market, because the alternatives themselves may still fall within scope.

    The Quebec ban on advertising to children, introduced as long ago as 1980—incidentally, for reasons other than to tackle obesity—had no effect on childhood obesity rates in that province, compared with other provinces. Indeed, the prevalence of being overweight or obese among children in Quebec grew by 140% during the first 15 full years of the advertising ban—a faster increase than elsewhere in Canada, where those restrictions did not exist.

    The UK’s advertising restrictions, currently in place across broadcast and non-broadcast advertising, including online advertising, are already among the strictest in the world. They restrict the exposure of HFSS advertising to children under 16. Although TV restrictions have been in place since 2008 and have reduced child exposure to HFSS on TV by around 70%, this has made no measurable impact on obesity rates. These current plans are disproportionate and not evidence-based; they are not targeted at the problem that the Government say needs to be addressed, which is to protect children. Indeed, they are sweeping and comprehensive, requiring new laws and a new regulatory structure.

    I urge the Government to liaise much better with industry. The Committee on Advertising Practice, the advertising code body, has put to Ministers an alternative proposal to this online ad ban, which is targeted, workable, effective and enforceable. So, let us do that. Let us engage rather than have these damaging and over-the-top regulatory proposals.

  • Dan Carden – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    Dan Carden – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    The speech made by Dan Carden, the Labour MP for Liverpool Walton, in the House of Commons on 27 May 2021.

    It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, which is covering a wide range of issues. At its heart, it is about trying to support a healthier British public, which I think the whole House genuinely cares about.

    My reason for speaking in the debate relates to alcohol labelling; I am sure that the Minister remembers our recent Adjournment debate. We are in the incredible situation where a product such as non-alcoholic beer or wine may provide its calorie content, nutritional information and a lot more, but an alcoholic product need contain only three pieces of information by law: the allergens, the percentage of alcohol by volume and the amount of liquid in the container. That is quite a bizarre situation for us to be in, so I am pleased to hear that the Minister is pushing ahead with the consultation on alcohol labelling. There has been some confusion in recent weeks and months. Just a few weeks ago, we heard that the Government had ditched plans to force pubs to list calories as part of a drive to tackle obesity. That came from Downing Street. I hope that, given what the Minister said, the consultation will be kicking off some time soon.

    I want to push the Minister once more on the need for a national alcohol strategy. We had the highest rate of deaths from alcohol on record this year. Alcohol-specific deaths are at an all-time high at a moment when drug and alcohol services are underfunded and mental health services are overstretched.

    If this is all about supporting a healthier nation—we have the obesity strategy, Dame Carol Black’s review of drugs, a consultation on alcohol labelling, a review of the Gambling Act 2005, and a promised addiction strategy from 2019—I suggest to the Minister that that work needs to be pulled together. The issues that we have touched on in this debate, including mental health and poverty, which are drivers of addiction, really need to be focused on in the months and years ahead.

  • Mark Harper – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    Mark Harper – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    The speech made by Mark Harper, the Conservative MP for Forest of Dean, in the House of Commons on 27 May 2021.

    As I said in my interventions on the Minister, I very much support the Government’s objective. A situation in which 36% of adults in England are overweight and 28% are obese is not good, and there are many health consequences of it, but my view is that, fundamentally, we need, first, to enable people to understand whether they are overweight or obese. That might sound like a foolish thing to say, but there is some evidence that people do not recognise whether they or those around them are overweight or obese, and are not very good at working that out.

    Secondly, we need to make people understand the health consequences of being overweight or obese. The Minister talked about incentives. The real incentive that people should have is that they want to be healthier. Unless individuals themselves want to be healthier and move towards a healthy weight, it seems to me that we will not get very far.

    Frankly, getting to a healthy weight means having a healthy diet. It does not mean going on a diet and then going back to unhealthy eating; it means changing diet permanently. In many cases, it means making not dramatic changes but small changes that people stick to, such as reducing portion sizes. It is about reducing treats and things we like, not getting rid of them. When I eat, I like all the bad things, but I have become better as I have got older—I have needed to—and now I am a bit more controlled about how many times I have them. I watch the size of my portions, because as I have got older, I have had to watch what I eat.

    It seems to me that it is about diet, not about individual foods. As my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) said, demonising individual foods is not a very successful strategy. There are plenty of things that I like that would individually be very unhealthy, but I just do not eat them very often. That is where we need to get to: people need to understand what a healthy weight is, understand the health consequences and want to get there themselves.

    I have a couple of questions for the Minister. She spoke about the evidence for out-of-home labelling. The impact assessment is a rather weighty document of 76 pages, but one of the things that I learned as a Minister is that it is worth plodding through such documents. There is lots of useful information in it, but I did not find any compelling evidence that introducing out-of-home calorie labelling would have any significant impact on the quantity of calories that people consume. Given the concerns that the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) and the charity Beat have rightly set out about those with eating disorders, the case for its successful impact is not very compelling. There is quite a lot of concern that it will not be helpful, so I think the Government ought to think again about their approach.

    I also have a question about the soft drinks industry levy. The levy has been successful in reducing the amount of sugar consumed; in my constituency, Suntory Beverage & Food Great Britain and Ireland, which produces Lucozade, Ribena and Orangina, has led the industry in taking more than 50% of sugar out of its products. It has also invested £13 million in new machinery at its Forest of Dean plant to produce those products—I was very proud to launch the new production line. However, although we have reduced the amount of sugar consumed, I have seen no evidence that we have therefore reduced the quantity of calories consumed or made any impact as a result.

    Alun Cairns

    My right hon. Friend is making a very effective, cogent argument. Does he agree that because there is a will to come up with a solution that will have an impact, there is a danger that unless we take account of all the evidence, including his points about the impact of the sugar tax, we might well feel better for doing something, but not quite achieve what we set out to achieve?

    Mr Harper

    That is right. I am very keen that we look at the evidence. I can see that through reformulation we have led the industry—the company that makes Lucozade and Ribena has been successful in doing that—but the real question is whether that has reduced the number of calories consumed, both by adults and by children, and had any impact on the number of people who are overweight or obese. It has clearly been successful in reducing the quantity of sugar consumed, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham said, sugar in itself is not a bad thing; people need to consume a certain amount of sugar to have a healthy diet. My worry is that we have reduced the amount of sugar in these products, but that will not actually make any difference to whether people have a healthy diet.

    All these measures need to be tested. The point that I was making to the Minister earlier is that I do not want us to introduce them, wait nine years until 2030, and then say, “Goodness, it hasn’t worked.” I absolutely accept the Minister’s point that national targets may not make sense, but we need to look, at a local level, at whether the measures are successful. If they are not working, we need to change them and look at what the evidence suggests would be more successful in getting people to a healthy weight so that we all lead a healthier lifestyle.

  • Wera Hobhouse – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    Wera Hobhouse – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    The speech made by Wera Hobhouse, the Liberal Democrat MP for Bath, in the House of Commons on 27 May 2021.

    I speak today as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on eating disorders and I want to highlight the anxiety felt by many of those with an eating disorder about one specific aspect of the obesity strategy: calorie labelling on menus. Obesity causes serious health problems and there is no doubt that far too many people in this country do not have a healthy weight. I add my unequivocal support to the Government’s aim of addressing obesity, but obesity has to be considered as one side of our complex relationship with food. It is a form of disordered eating and therefore cannot be separated from other forms of disordered eating and cannot be dealt with in isolation. Calorie labelling on menus will not only be ineffective in tackling obesity, but will actively damage those with an eating disorder.

    Studies show that there is only a small body of low-quality evidence supporting the suggestion that calorie counts on menus lead to a reduction in calories purchased. While there is limited evidence that calorie labelling will support the public in losing weight, there is convincing evidence that it would harm people with an eating disorder. About 1.25 million people in the UK have an eating disorder, and the 2019 health survey found that 16% of all adults aged 16 or over screened positive for a possible eating disorder. Over the pandemic, the charity Beat has reported a 173% increase in demand for eating disorder support, and research shows that individuals with anorexia and bulimia are more likely to order food with significantly fewer calories when presented with a menu including calorie counts. Those with binge eating disorder are more likely to order food with significantly more calories.

    Many people with eating disorders also live with obesity. Up to 30% of people seeking weight management services would meet the diagnostic criteria for binge eating disorder. Clearly, a reductionist approach to nutrition means that the obesity strategy risks harming some of the very people it is designed to support.

    Mr Harper

    I am sympathetic to the point the hon. Lady is making, and she will know from my intervention that I think the evidence with respect to calories and out-of-home labelling is quite weak. Is labelling on products purchased in supermarkets also a problem for those with eating disorders? I ask that genuinely; I do not know the answer. Can she furnish that information?

    Wera Hobhouse

    I am particularly concerned about calorie labelling in restaurants. People who suffer from eating disorders are isolated and fearful of contact with others because they are thinking continuously about what they are going to eat or drink. Going out to a restaurant gets them through that step, and it is often a significant step towards recovery. As I say, my particular concern is labelling on restaurant menus.

    In response to the survey on calorie labelling conducted by Beat, one respondent said:

    “My eating disorder thrives off calorie counting and knowing all the calories in everything. I would feel compelled to look at calorie labels”

    in restaurants and

    “I would feel embarrassed asking for a different menu. Please don’t do it. Please.”

    The Mental Health Minister has been extremely generous with her time, listening to the all-party parliamentary group’s concerns about the plan to mandate calorie labelling on menus. The APPG is grateful for her interest in improving early access to eating disorder treatment. However, I must repeat my plea to the Government to look again at this element of the obesity strategy.

    Addressing obesity and tackling eating disorders should not be in competition. We must tackle them together. I look forward to working with the Minister to develop an obesity strategy that successfully addresses the obesity epidemic, but does not harm people with other forms of eating disorder.

  • Alun Cairns – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    Alun Cairns – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    The speech made by Alun Cairns, the Conservative MP for the Vale of Glamorgan, in the House of Commons on 27 May 2021.

    Thank you for inviting me to contribute to this extremely important debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) for securing the debate, and to the way in which the Minister and the Opposition spokesman have contributed so far. Obesity rates are too high, without question, and the long-term consequences include a range of diseases: covid, which has already been mentioned, dementia, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, liver disease and so many more. The need to tackle obesity therefore goes without saying.

    The challenge of obesity and its consequences among young children naturally has a very long tail. Introducing policies to meet the childhood obesity challenge naturally requires an understanding of the complexity of the causes if we are to have a real impact on the effect. Diet is obviously central to what we need influence, but it is not the full story. Contributing to the make-up of the diet there will be a series of complexities, and there needs to be clarity around the content of food products. I pay tribute to the work that the Government are doing and what they have committed to do in the Queen’s Speech, and to the work that has been done on labelling and on the sugar tax, which has contributed to a reduction in sugar in fizzy drinks and other products.

    Knowledge and skills are important, including, for example, on the availability of fresh vegetables. Fruit and vegetables are obviously important, as is knowing how to cook. Standards and approaches in schools are also difficult. We need education in schools and among parents, who are also central to tackling childhood obesity. Lifestyle is an issue. The slower lifestyle through the lockdown period has enabled many people to address their own weight, but others have not done so. All of these issues naturally have complexities associated with them. Exercise is clearly also an issue, as well as eating disorders, which have been highlighted. I am trying to highlight the complexity of all that we need to face.

    With these points in mind, I ask the Minister to consider the cause and effect directly, as well as the focus that has been given to the advertising industry and the marketing of food products, to establish whether it will have the desired impact. Whatever action we take, we must be sure that it will make a difference. There have been calls for many years for a television advertising ban. I can remember it being discussed in Cabinet and being resisted because the evidence was unconvincing. We need to consider that, although there is a call for a television advertising ban, habits have changed. Very few children these days watch television in the way that we might have done when we were younger, and that demonstrates the further complexity of the debate. Displacement is another issue. Advertising is more likely to move online, and I think all Governments recognise the challenge of tackling advertising online. Finding a solution is much more complicated when dealing with things online, as we have seen from the example of Governments struggling to tackle adult content online being accessed by children.

    In the very limited time I have, I want to ask the Minister to look at the consequences, both positive and negative, and to question whether one will outweigh the other. I ask her to engage with the industry to see whether a solution can be found in which the industry itself, including broadcasters and online advertisers, can support the Government’s aims.

  • Paul Blomfield – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    Paul Blomfield – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    The speech made by Paul Blomfield, the Labour MP for Sheffield Central, in the House of Commons on 27 May 2021.

    The Government are clearly right to say that this is one of the greatest long-term health challenges that we face, and it starts with our children. One in four enter primary school overweight or obese and, as the Minister pointed out, one in three leave in that position six years later. We have a shocking problem that gets worse during children’s primary years.

    Like any disease, there are two ways of tackling it: prevention and treatment. I broadly welcome the measures being proposed by the Government on prevention, although we should look carefully at the evidence and concerns around calorie labelling for those with eating disorders, but prevention is not enough in itself. We need proper treatment services for children, and currently we do not have them.

    Imagine for a moment that we were talking about another disease—say, cancer. Would we say, “We’ll invest in prevention, but I’m afraid we’ll not offer any treatment for children with the disease.” Of course we would not, but that is what we are saying for obesity currently. The Health and Social Care Committee highlighted the problem in its 2018 report, noting evidence from Public Health England that only 56% of local authorities

    “have a tier 2 weight management service for children”

    and that those services

    “are not intended to support individuals with complex needs. When looking at tier 3 and 4 services, service provision is bare.”

    It went on to recommend:

    “The Government must ensure there are robust systems in place not only to identify children who are overweight or obese, but to ensure that these children are offered effective help through a multidisciplinary, family-centric approach.”

    However, the Government’s obesity strategy does not acknowledge the issue. I have become aware of it through the work that I have done with Shine Health Academy in my constituency—a great local project providing the sort of tier 3 services that the Committee wanted. They take children on referral from GPs, teachers and social workers, and they have great outcomes, but they are funded mainly by charities, because neither clinical commissioning groups nor local authorities have responsibility for commissioning services.

    I know that the Minister recognises the problem because, together with the inspirational leader of Shine Health Academy Kath Sharman, I met her to discuss the issue about 18 months ago. There have been some positive initiatives by NHS England, and I welcome the work to establish complications related to excess weight clinics—CREW clinics—to support children and young people with severe obesity, but it is limited. As I understand it, the aim of such services is to manage the comorbidities associated with obesity rather than tackling the disease itself. There are just seven centres in the plan, each for 100 children. It is useful, but it is a very small step assessed against need, because the Obesity Health Alliance calculates that there are 450,000 children in the UK who, if they were adults, would be eligible for bariatric surgery. That is shocking, but it is the scale of the challenge.

    There are also worries about the CREW approach. Such clinics seem to place too much emphasis on the role of hospitals, and risk being about medical management rather than weight management. They definitely have a role to play and are fundamental to the treatment of comorbidities, but they should not be the only model of care. Above all, there is no certainty of future funding. In her summing up, I ask the Minister, who I know cares about this issue, to say whether it will finally be the Government’s intention to establish clear responsibility for commissioning tier 3 services for children as the Health and Social Care Committee recommended, because frankly nothing less will do.

  • Greg Smith – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    Greg Smith – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    The speech made by Greg Smith, the Conservative MP for Buckingham, in the House of Commons on 27 May 2021.

    Obesity is clearly a huge challenge facing our country, and one that absolutely should not be ignored, but I do fear that the state is significantly overreaching in some of the proposals that have come forward as part of the obesity strategy. The approach to foods high in fat, sugar and salt encompasses a perversely broad range of products, including butter, granola, porridge oats, muesli and protein bars, none of which have any particular appeal to or indeed are marketed to children, yet all of which are treated as junk food.

    Breakfast cereals were previously heralded for high fibre but are now demonised. No distinction is made for naturally occurring sugars and fats from the dried fruits and nuts that are so often present in those products. If the state is really saying that breakfast cereals are bad, where does that naturally push people? A bacon sandwich? A full English? A pain au chocolat? All are things that I am particularly partial to but that I do not think the public health establishment will be keen to endorse. Perhaps people could have toast? But then we see that butter is on the HFSS naughty list.

    Many breakfast cereal producers pay farmers, including in my constituency, a premium for buying their oats, thereby paying for the environmental and wildlife schemes that I am sure we all value. Let us be in no doubt that any policy that reduces cereal-makers’ ability to sell wholegrain cereals will adversely impact on great British farmers.

    Mr Harper

    I was intrigued to listen to my hon. Friend’s list of products. Is not the issue that there is a focus on individual products when, actually, the important thing in getting to a healthy weight is not individual products but a person’s diet as a whole and the balance between individual products across their diet? To demonise individual products is not the way to go.

    Greg Smith

    I absolutely endorse and agree with everything that my right hon. Friend says. It must be about the promotion of a balanced, healthy diet. Some of the things that we all know are not particularly good for us can be part of that balanced, healthy diet, so I absolutely agree.

    The restrictions also undermine some alternatives to high-sugar sacks. For example, protein bars are used by many adults who lead highly active lifestyles. Surely the restriction contradicts the ultimate goal of the Government’s strategy: healthier living.

    Let me move on briefly to the question of TV advertising. Broadcasters and creative industries throughout the United Kingdom are estimated to be in line to lose some £200 million because of the proposals. With children spending far more time watching online content than traditional TV channels, it is essential, not least for our public service broadcasters, that there is an absolutely clear level playing field between TV broadcast and online. Anything less would be to let down our broadcasters, particularly, as I say, our public service broadcasters.

    I would also argue that the 9 pm watershed is equally destined to fail, as research shows that it will lower the calorie intake among children by just 1.7 calories a day, which is simply inconsequential. We need a more proportionate, less interventionist solution that ensures fairness for all. Obesity is a complex problem, but the solution cannot be nannying, ineffective policies.

    I certainly did not get into politics to tell people what they should and should not eat, because when people are free to make an informed choice about the way they live, without coercion or state interference, they are much more likely to keep those changes long term, to the benefit of the health of the nation. I urge the Government to rethink the proposals and strip out the nonsensical inclusion of products such as cereals and protein bars. Let us look once more to freedom, choice and personal responsibility.

  • Alison Thewliss – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    Alison Thewliss – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    The speech made by Alison Thewliss, the SNP MP for Glasgow Central, in the House of Commons on 27 May 2021.

    I want to start by echoing the sentiments of the Obesity Health Alliance; in this debate, weight stigma does not help people lose weight. The right support, evidence-based weight management, and fundamental changes to our obesogenic environment and food systems are all required to tackle this.

    The health harms caused by obesity are well known, but I initially wish to mention one particular aspect that does not get the attention it deserves: liver disease. On average 40 people die of liver disease every day. The Foundation for Liver Research and the British Liver Trust have sent a helpful briefing, but in truth I had already committed to mentioning it in this debate. My husband, Joe, was diagnosed with stage 2 non-alcohol related fatty liver disease in 2019, after wandering around complaining of a wee pain under his ribs for five years. Since his diagnosis, he has made difficult but necessary changes to his lifestyle; he has lost 22 kg, taken up hillwalking, and has been carefully monitoring his weight, and I am very proud of him.

    Some 90% of liver disease is preventable and, luckily for Joe, at stage 2 it can be reversed; however, as it can remain asymptomatic for up to 20 years, three quarters of people are diagnosed at a late stage when it is too late for lifestyle changes or interventions. Liver disease is the third leading cause of premature death in the UK, with deaths increasing by 400% over the past two generations; this is in stark contrast to other major diseases, such as heart disease and cancer, so I urge the UK Government, who have acknowledged liver disease in their obesity plan, to come up with actions, including doing all they can to spread information about this disease and the ways of preventing it.

    The disproportionate harm caused by covid 19 to older people, minority ethnic groups, the people living in greatest deprivation, and those with obesity, diabetes and respiratory and cardiovascular disease has highlighted new vulnerabilities and underscored existing health inequalities. While much focus has been put on the direct health impacts of covid, the SNP recognises that we must also work to shift our focus towards reducing those inequalities and preventing ill health. We want everyone to eat well, be a healthy weight and have equal access to care.

    The ambitious and wide-ranging actions to address this challenge are set out in the Scottish Government’s diet and healthy weight delivery plan. The plan, which has over 60 broad-ranging actions, has a strong focus on prevention, including population-level measures to make it easier for people to make healthier choices, as well as more targeted interventions. Alongside this, the SNP Scottish Government also published “A More Active Scotland: Scotland’s Physical Activity Delivery Plan”. This recognises the importance of physical activity in promoting and maintaining healthy weight. Progress towards the outcomes set out in this delivery plan is being monitored through a dedicated set of indicators linked to the active Scotland outcomes framework”. The SNP Scottish Government are continuing to provide £1.7 million in 2020-21 for improvements to weight management services for children and young people. Earlier this year, the SNP Scottish Government also published the refresh of their diabetes improvement plan, which strengthens the actions in the original plan to improve the prevention and treatment of diabetes and the care of all people in Scotland affected by it.

    The SNP has consistently pressed the UK Government to ban junk food advertising on television and online before the 9 pm watershed, and we welcome that this is finally coming to fruition. Online adverts on social media are an area the UK Government must tackle strongly, as other Members have mentioned, because they are pervasive. In our recent manifesto, the SNP renewed its commitment to halve childhood obesity by 2030 and to significantly reduce diet-related health inequalities by pledging to provide free school breakfasts and lunches to every primary school pupil in Scotland, all year round, and to all children in state-funded special schools in Scotland; and to pilot the provision of free nutritious school breakfasts in secondary schools and explore the feasibility of universal breakfast provision in secondary schools.

    We also want to make Active Schools programmes free for all children by the end of the Parliament, continue to improve nutritional standards of food and drink in schools, and bring forward legislation over the next Parliament to restrict the use of promotions on food and drink that is high in fat, sugar and salt. We will also aim to enshrine the fundamental right to food in law, as the cornerstone of being a good food nation. That will form part of the commitment to incorporate UN human rights charters into Scots law.

    Scotland has one of the world’s best natural larders, but we know that so many people do not eat well and that obesity remains a significant problem. Evidence shows that in less well-off communities it is more difficult to obtain good-quality, fresh food at a price people can afford. Community larder projects, such as the Govanhill People’s Pantry in my constituency, have been springing up all over the place and working hard to try to redress the balance, in this case by working with FareShare to provide access to food in the community.

    The overriding issue of poverty is, of course, key to tackling a lot of the issues; access to sufficient healthy food and the means to cook it is not there for everyone, not least because of policies such as the two-child limit, the upcoming removal of the £20 uplift to universal credit and tax credits, the UK Government’s neglect of people on legacy benefits, and the pretendy living wage. They all contribute to a situation where people cannot afford to eat healthily. If the UK Government want to tackle obesity, they cannot continue to ignore this reality.

    Investment in regenerating neighbourhoods, increasing access to walking and cycling, and improving parks is also significant in getting people out and about and moving. Just last night, alongside local councillors, I met mums and grans from the Calton Community Association, who are desperate to access the newly announced Scottish Government fund for parks so that their kids can benefit from outdoor play. An obesogenic environment, coupled with a culture that allows the insidious influence of food giants and their ultra-processed foods to be advertised not just to us but to our children, has proven to be a recipe for disaster. I am looking forward to watching the latest programme by campaigner Dr Chris van Tulleken, “What Are We Feeding Our Kids?” and urge the UK Government to tune in tonight. The supermarket aisles are heaving with unnecessary infant snack foods, and the new report by the First Steps Nutrition Trust should be essential reading for the Minister.

    One significant point of difference in the UK and Scottish strategies concerns our youngest citizens. Scotland’s healthy weight strategy specifically mentions the significance of breastfeeding, which can of course have a positive effect on maternal weight, as well as that of babies. The UK Government are committed to consulting

    “on our proposals to help parents of young children to make healthier choices through more honest marketing and labelling of infant foods.”

    Ministers could start by doing more to protect babies and pregnant mothers from the rapacious global formula industry, and, in this the 40th year of the World Health Organisation’s international code of marketing of breast milk substitutes, fully adopt the code. That used to be something the UK Government would blame the EU for their inability to do, but they have lost that excuse and must now act. The code sets out to protect all babies, however they are fed. As the chair of the all-party group on infant feeding and inequalities, I do not set this up as any kind of false pro-breastfeeding/anti-formula battle, because I know that for many formula is essential. Many mums want to breastfeed, but are failed by a UK Government who do not see breastfeeding as a priority and do not invest in support. Some years ago, Norway changed its approach and it now has one of the highest rates in the world. Norwegian mums do not have different breasts from us, but they do have a Government who made their needs a priority.

    The Minister said that if adverts did not influence people, they would not be used, and she is correct. Formula companies spend astronomical figures on marketing, a cost that gets passed on to consumers at the tills and makes it challenging for many families to afford formula, and on the promotion of follow-on and specialist formulas, which are not necessary, but exist largely as a means of cross-promotion. I hope the UK Government will also act on that, as they claim they intend to look at honest marketing and labelling. As an example of that marketing, I share the concerns raised by the UK’s Baby Feeding Law Group that the National Trust has formed a partnership with HiPP Organic, a company with many documented violations of the code over the years. We should be under no illusions: these kinds of partnerships exist to benefit the company and boost their brand, and I urge the National Trust to reconsider.

    I wish to touch briefly on the issue of calories on menus, on which I have received many emails, as I am sure other Members have. I can see what the UK Government intend, and I appreciate that for some people having calories listed on menus may be useful—I have certainly eaten fewer Danish pastries since coffee shops started to put calories on the display—but the policy is not about anecdotes and headlines and must be based on evidence. For those with a history of disordered eating, this is a deeply serious issue and such triggers can be very harmful indeed, so I urge Ministers to be cautious in what they are doing and to listen to and learn from the evidence from expert organisations such as Beat and from those affected.

    I commend the Government for taking action on a range of issues to do with obesity but urge them to look more widely at the factors that cause obesity and to follow the Scottish Government’s approach with a healthy weight strategy.

  • Andrew Selous – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    Andrew Selous – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    The speech made by Andrew Selous, the Conservative MP for South West Bedfordshire, in the House of Commons on 27 May 2021.

    Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker.

    Although we should always talk about obesity with sensitivity and avoid stigma at all costs, we lack courage and fail in our duty if we do not address it. Fundamentally, it is about life chances and social justice, and we want life, and life to the full, for all our constituents.

    We are regularly asked to do more for the NHS, and rightly so. One crucial way we can help the NHS is to focus on the prevention of obesity. The 2019 paper by S. C. Davies produced by the Department of Health and Social Care calculated the medical cost and lost productivity cost of obesity at around 3% of gross domestic product, or £60 billion. As a country, we have the worst rates of obesity in Europe. There is absolutely no doubt that this matter is urgent and needs action now.

    I salute the young people of Bite Back 2030, with their #AdEnough campaign, for their stand against the 15 billion junk food adverts they are bombarded with online every year. One young man told us he had more of those than he had contact from his grandmother. It is excellent that the Government are taking action on that. We should also curtail junk food advertising on radio, outdoors and in cinemas, restrict junk food sponsorship of sports events and teams, and remove child-friendly characters from junk food packaging.

    There is, I am afraid, quite a lot more work to do on reformulation. The 20% reduction target is far from being achieved by this autumn, with only 3% achieved so far. I congratulate Tesco, Asda, Weetabix, Co-op and Aldi on big reductions either overall or in some categories. By contrast, Mondelēz International and Mars Wrigley saw the sales weighted average of sugar per 100g in their sweet confectionery increase. They need to get with the programme. We need to start flooding our supermarkets, schools and the out-of-home sector with healthy, nutritious, delicious and hopefully often home-grown food, and we need to make sure that healthy food is affordable; as the Food Foundation has pointed out, this is often the case in Europe but, bizarrely, not always the case in the United Kingdom. That is something we should concentrate on and we can change, and we need to take it very seriously indeed.

    It has always mystified me that the quality and outcomes framework in primary care does not reward GPs for collecting data on children’s body mass index and ensuring there is a first-class diet, exercise and cooking skills offer online and in person locally. Primary care must be at the front of this campaign to make sure we are a nation of people with healthy weights.

    Bite Back 2030 says that 60% of schools are not upholding school food standards even though it is the law to uphold them. We must strengthen the enforcement mechanism to make that happen, as school food is a great child health opportunity that we are not making the most of and that we need to act on urgently.