Hungry for change: fixing the failures in food
Today the House of Lords Select Committee on Food, Poverty, Health and the Environment have today released their timely report ‘Hungry for change: fixing failures in food’ - the culmination of their inquiry into the links between inequality, public health and food sustainability, painting a stark picture of just how hard it is for many families across the UK to live healthy lives.
Action on Sugar and Action on Salt provided written evidence for this inquiry - our written submission can be found here. The report lays out why it is not merely down to individuals to make healthy choices and protect their own health. Unhealthy food is around three times cheaper than healthier food, advertisements across TV and social media tend to show less of the food that is good for us, supermarkets are laid out to influence our choice and fast food and other unhealthy takeaways clustering in more deprived areas.
However, Government is well aware of the issues raised. In fact, their Childhood Obesity Plan (chapters one, two and three) contain many measures that would go some way to addressing the issues, such as restrictions on the advertising and marketing of unhealthy food to help ensure we see more of the food that is good for us, implementing a calorie reduction programme to remove excess and unnecessary calories from every day products, and restructuring the tax system to help make healthy food cheaper. Four years after the first chapter was released, we’ve seen more lengthy consultations than action.
Mhairi Brown, Policy and Public Affairs Coordinator for Action on Salt and Action on Sugar, said: "This timely report, which Action on Sugar and Salt provided written and oral evidence for, has once again echoed our recommendations and those of the wider health community, researchers, Public Health England and the Department of Health and Social Care to help ensure that everyone in the UK has enough to eat and that the healthiest choice is the easiest choice.
Although there is an element of personal responsibility in both the treatment and prevention of obesity and other related health conditions, this can only be achieved with equitable access to healthy, affordable food. However, this is far from a reality for millions of Britain’s, especially those living in poverty, who are at increased risk of becoming obese which is also an independent (and modifiable) risk factor for more severe illness and death from COVID-19.
The Government’s Childhood Obesity Plans, chapters 1, 2 and 3, are ready to go and would go some way to resolving the issues raised in this new report. It’s time for the Prime Minister to give them the green light."
