Childhood obesity plan ‘flawed’

The UK government today published its long awaited childhood obesity plan, designed to significantly reduce childhood obesity by supporting healthier choices.

Childhood obesity: a plan for action details the government’s plan to reduce England’s rate of childhood obesity within the next 10 years by encouraging the food and drink industry to cut the amount of sugar in products, and inspire primary school children to eat more healthily and stay active.

With heavy emphasis placed on the proposed sugar tax on soft drinks, announced in the Budget earlier this year, food and drink associations have expressed their disappointment at the plan’s focus on sugar and have called on government to reconsider the tax in favour of a whole diet approach.

“Unnecessary and harmful to the economy”

Gavin Partington, director general, British Soft Drinks Association, says, “Given the economic uncertainty our country now faces we’re disappointed the government wishes to proceed with a measure which analysis suggests will cause thousands of job losses and yet fail to have a meaningful impact on levels of obesity.

“As an industry we recognise we have a role to play in tackling obesity, so it’s a sad irony that the one category that has led the way in reducing consumers’ sugar intake – down 16% from soft drinks since 2012 – is being targeted for a punitive tax.

“Our action on reformulation and smaller pack sizes is clearly working and in 2015 we became the only category to set a voluntary calorie reduction target of 20% by 2020.  We also voluntarily extended the advertising rules regarding under 16s to all online media.

“We’ll share the evidence during this consultation in the hope ministers reconsider a measure that is both unnecessary and harmful to the economy.”

“Taxes will not make any difference”

Face the Facts, Can the Tax – a recently formed coalition of soft drinks manufacturers, businesses and those that sell soft drinks, which aims to communicate the facts about the proposed sugar tax, arguing instead for solutions that work to tackle obesity without costing jobs – also called for ministers to rethink the ‘ineffective’ tax.

Kate Nicholls, a member of the coalition, says, “It is right that the government wants to tackle obesity and we recognise the challenge of doing so, but the worldwide evidence is clear that taxes will not make any difference. In fact, a new independent report by Oxford Economics has shown that the tax will lead to over 4,000 job losses and a £132 million decline in the UK economy, all for a policy that will lead to a reduction in only five calories per day per person.

“At this time of great economic uncertainty we urge ministers to reconsider this ineffective and harmful tax that will have a negative impact on businesses that employ over 400,000 people across this country.”

“Disappointing diversion from effective measures”

Food and Drink Federation director general Ian Wright adds, “The proposed tax on soft drinks is a disappointing diversion from effective measures to tackle obesity. Soft drink companies are already making great progress to reduce sugars from their products, having achieved a 16% reduction between 2012 and 2016. Indeed, many individual manufacturers have a proud track record of reformulation to remove salt, fat and sugar from food and drinks and this work will continue.

“However, the target set for sugars reduction in the plan is flawed. It focuses too strongly on the role of this single nutrient, when obesity is caused by excess calories from any nutrient.  Moreover the target is unlikely to be technically practical across all the selected food categories. Reformulation is difficult and costly: there are different challenges for each product; recipe change can only proceed at a pace dictated by consumers.

“We will of course do everything we can in the next six months to work towards a practicable reformulation solution while continuing to urge the government to adopt a ‘whole diet’ approach.”