BHF comment
Willpower and exercise are not enough to tackle childhood obesity
Decades have happened in months in the world of public health. A once-in-a-century pandemic grips the country, a Tory Prime Minister’s near-death experience prompts a damascene moment on the need to tackle obesity, and the Government decides to abolish Public Health England as the country emerges from months of lockdown.
As we catch our breath after a tumultuous few months, I hope one reason to be cheerful, despite the uncertainty surrounding the future of public health, is the Government’s new focus on addressing obesity.
A report published last week by the think tank IPPR further clarifies the opportunity this Government has, highlighting the major benefits for the whole of society if we are successful in reducing childhood obesity.
The report, The Whole Society Approach: Making a Giant Leap in Child Health, estimates that if the Government achieves its goal of reducing childhood obesity by 2030, then it would save the NHS £37 billion and would be worth £202 billion to wider society over the lifetimes of today’s children in England. This would be through improved productivity, reduced hospital admissions and increased workforce participation.
A significant challenge
As is well documented, the scale of the challenge in reducing obesity levels is significant, and addressing it has been made all the more urgent by the link with more severe cases of Covid-19.
Around 27 per cent of the UK’s population has obesity and a further 35 per cent percent has a weight classed as overweight. Not only can obesity have consequences for mental health, it also greatly increases your chances of getting certain cancers, heart and circulatory diseases, Type 2 diabetes and a whole array of other life-shortening and life-worsening health conditions.
In stark terms, rising obesity levels will lead to more lives lost, while costs to the NHS attributed to overweight and obesity-related ill health could reach £9.7 billion by 2050.
A recipe for poor health
Too often, personal responsibility is cited as the answer. Eat less, exercise more, control your appetite. But millennia of human evolution have helped to shape highly pleasurable, physiological responses to energy dense foods.
Once scarce, these foods are now abundant and frequently cheaper and more convenient to buy than fresh produce. This is a troubling combination that makes it difficult to control how much we eat of them. In short, a recipe for poor health.
All of this is why the Government’s new found resolve in reducing obesity is so encouraging – but only if the measures are made a reality, and are not watered down as they make their way into law.
'It takes a village'
A 9pm watershed on junk food marketing on TV and online, for example, will be critical in enabling parents and children alike to make healthier choices about food. Again and again, studies have shown that fast food marketing is linked to a greater preference for snacking and unhealthy food, and to increased calorie intake in young people.
Mandatory calorie labelling on menus, and food and drink products, will help further. Providing dietary information on menus incentivises outlets to reduce the fat and salt content of their products and helps families make more informed choices about the food they eat.
The central thrust of IPPR’s report on childhood health is that old saying ‘it takes a village’, meaning that society as a whole must take responsibility for creating as healthy an environment as possible for children to grow up in. If we continue to lay the blame for childhood obesity at the door of individuals and families, who often lack healthy, affordable options, then we won’t make the progress we so desperately need in reducing obesity rates.
The Government’s plan is a significant first step in addressing this public health crisis – we can’t afford to blow this chance to improve the health of a generation of children.