A few months ago I wrote here about the importance of reducing levels of obesity and trying to eat more healthily. Since then, things have moved on and later this week the government will be announcing measures to work with the supermarkets to try and help people lose weight.
Since the 1990s rates of obesity have doubled, and childhood obesity in the UK is now amongst the highest in Europe. Obesity is the root cause of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, and costs the NHS some £11 billion a year.
The rising demand, and the costs, threaten the future viability of the NHS. We have to focus on prevention rather than cure. Some – most notably Reform – argue that it is un-affordable and we should move to an American style insurance system. However, the government (and I), want to keep the publicly funded, free at the point of need, universal healthcare we’ve had for the last 78 years. It’s a brilliant system.
It’s our ambition for children today that they grow up as part of the healthiest generation of children ever.
Working with supermarkets to make the healthy choice and the easy choice will make a big difference. Cutting the calorie count of the daily shop (and by extension people’s intake), by just 50 calories would lift 340,000 children and 2m adults out of obesity. Further, cutting 215 calories a day would halve obesity – that’s a serving of peanut butter, a ring doughnut, or a handful of jelly babies.
We want to work with the supermarkets to help make healthy shopping just a little bit easier with the introduction of a new healthy food standard. Supermarkets have a staggering amount of information about the way that people shop, and we’re going to encourage them to use that information to help us shop a bit more healthily.
It could be stocking more healthy food, displaying it differently, promoting healthier options or discounting fewer unhealthy options such as ultra-processed ‘foods’.
We know that some supermarkets are trying to encourage shoppers in this way, but government involvement can help level the playing field and ensure that no-one loses market share. Working together on this has to be the way ahead, and is preferable to, say, introducing a sugar tax.
