A damning assessment of the Government’s childhood obesity plan has renewed calls for a sugary drinks tax.
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It follows a long-running anti-sugar campaign by the TV chef, who has introduced a 10p tax on sugary drinks across his own United Kingdom restaurants.
The soft drinks industry remains unhappy with the sugar tax on their products, as unveiled by former chancellor George Osborne in his last budget in March.
The charity believes these losses have left the sugar agenda short of some influential support and it is now in danger of losing some of the momentum it has gained recently through the introduction of the proposed sugar tax.
A lack of “meaningful regulation” of sugary food and drinks showed the Government was beholden to the profit-driven food industry, it said.
Campaigners and health experts, however, said the plan was weak.
Indeed, what has been published today looks like the government running backwards: “running away from a fully-fledged strategy to a watered-down plan; away from its own public health advisors’ recommendations; away from any action to curb junk food marketing and promotions; and away from mandatory measures, back to the past failed voluntary approaches”.
It says the ultimate target is a 20% sugar cut, with Public Health England monitoring voluntary progress over the next four years.
Michaela ONeill, President of the BSDHT, added: “As dental professionals we see first-hand the devastating effect that too much sugar has on our children’s oral health”. There will be two bands: a lower band for total sugar content above five grams per 100 milliliters; and a higher band for drinks with more than eight grams per 100 milliliters.
Yet other measures recommended by the Commons Health Select committee a year ago – such as banning junk food advertising during popular family TV shows and an outright ban on supermarkets placing candies and junk food at checkouts or the ends of aisles – do not appear.
The long-awaited Government report aims to tackle the problem of childhood obesity as figures show almost a third of children aged 2 to 15 are overweight or obese.
A third of children are already overweight or obese by the time they leave primary school, and, based on current trends, half of all children will be obese or overweight by 2020.
Under the plan, the government is to introduce a soft drinks industry levy on producers and importers across the United Kingdom, created to encourage a reduction in the amount of sugar contained in these products.
Responding to claims the childhood obesity strategy was a priority for David Cameron but not his successor, Mrs May, she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘No, that’s not right’.
Meanwhile Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston who chairs the Health Committee in the House of Commons said the plan showed “the hand of big industry lobbyists”.
Instead, the strategy favours a voluntary scheme for the food industry to reformulate children’s products to reduce sugar.
Wright described the target set for sugar reduction in the strategy as “flawed“.
Public Health Minister Nicola Blackwood said: “This Government is absolutely committed to reducing childhood obesity and one of the best ways to do this is to boost sports in schools”.
Obesity rates in Scotland are amongst the highest in the world, even higher than in England.
Focusing on the children themselves, the strategy will incentivise primary schools and parents to offer at least an hour of “moderate to vigorous” physical activity a day, with PHE developing advice for schools for the 2017-18 academic year.
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The plan’s focus on energy density – the number of kilojoules in food – rather than its sugar content is also criticised, because it ends up focusing on fat, rather than sugar.
