News • Children's Food Campaign
Childhood Obesity Strategy delayed by Government until summer
The Government appear to be in confusion about how to tackle Childhood Obesity. By delaying a strategy that was originally promised in 2015, they now seem to be downgrading the importance of dealing with the Childhood Obesity crisis.
The Department of Health are reported to have revealed that the strategy has now been delayed until the summer of 2016.
Ben Reynolds, Deputy Coordinator of Sustain commented, “We have some sympathy with the Government who have clearly been overwhelmed by the scale of the task in coming up with a response to the childhood obesity crisis. They will have to hope that the generation of children who will be short served by this inaction will be as sympathetic.”
“Another view is that this is not a top priority for the Government, who it would appear don’t have the capacity, or the desire, to deal with more than one thing at a time. The evidence presented by all the Government’s health experts is clear on the need to act, what to act on, and the urgency of acting now. Action on restricting junk food advertising, promotions and sponsorship should not be delayed.”
“While his colleagues dawdle, we call on George Osborne to go some way to addressing this by introducing a sugary drinks tax in his next budget in March. In recent months the Welsh assembly and Northern Irish assembly have both passed motions in favour of a sugary drinks tax, with other countries including Ireland and South Africa now look set to introduce something similar. This makes the UK government look woefully out of touch with its commitment to deal with the problem of childhood obesity and diet related disease.”
Sustain run the Children's Food Campaign and campaign for a Sugary Drinks Duty.
Published Friday 26 February 2016
Children's Food Campaign: Better food and food teaching for children in schools, and protection of children from junk food marketing are the aims of Sustain's high-profile Children's Food Campaign. We also want clear food labelling that can be understood by everyone, including children.
