BHF comment
Food White Paper disappoints on breaking the junk food cycle
Published:
13 June 2022
Published:
13 June 2022
Today we have responded to the Government’s Food White Paper as a ‘missed opportunity’ for driving better health for the nation.
The paper is the Government’s promised response to Henry Dimbleby’s National Food Strategy, published in 2021, which was commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to independently review England’s food system.
The Government’s response today rightly recognised the impact our food environment has on driving high rates of obesity and excess weight, but measures in the White Paper do not go anywhere near far enough to address this.
Living with obesity can increase the risk of heart and circulatory diseases like heart attacks, strokes and vascular dementia.
It is critical that the Government drives progress towards their goals of halving childhood obesity by 2030 and improving everyone’s healthy life expectancy, and this cannot be done without making our everyday food healthier.
This is particularly true in light of the Government’s recent 12-month delay to junk food marketing restrictions which had been announced in its 2020 obesity strategy and became law in April.
The restrictions would have imposed a ban on junk food multibuy deals and introduced a 9pm watershed on TV advertising of unhealthy food.
The Government estimated the TV restrictions, and similar measures online, could remove up to 7.2 billion calories from children’s diets every year in the UK.
Sugar and salt tax
We supported the recommendation set out in the National Food Strategy for a new sugar and salt tax, which would have made further progress on encouraging manufacturers to make our everyday foods healthier – we were disappointed not to see it included in the White Paper.
A mandatory measure like this, as the Soft Drinks Industry Levy shows, is the most effective way to drive manufacturers to reduce salt and sugar in their products – voluntary schemes to encourage reformulation have stalled in many areas.
It is critical that the Government focuses on rebalancing our unhealthy food system as soon as possible, and we hope for clear commitments in the Government’s upcoming Health Disparities White Paper.
Dr Charmaine Griffiths, Chief Executive of the British Heart Foundation, said: “Today’s White Paper is a missed opportunity to help address our unhealthy food environment.
“The Government must urgently explore ways to build on the success of the mandatory soft drinks industry levy and compel manufacturers to make our everyday foods healthier and easier to access for all families, particularly after the unacceptable delay to restrictions on junk food advertising and promotions.
“The Prime Minister will now need to put his foot to the floor in order to drive progress towards his Government’s own goal of halving child obesity and improving everyone’s healthy life expectancy over the next decade and beyond.”