Children's Food Campaign's response to the release of PHE's evidence review

Responding to the launch of Public Health England’s ‘Sugar Reduction: the evidence for action’, Malcolm Clark, co-ordinator of Children's Food Campaign, said:

"We want to see healthier and more sustainable food made as available and affordable as less healthy options currently are, and better marketed too. So we welcome Public Health England’s recognition that price promotions, checkout and aisle-end displays, TV advertising on programmes children watch and the loopholes companies exploit to market their products online all increase the sugar and calories children consume, and thus should be ‘significantly reduced’."

"The economic and human costs of continuing softly-softly approaches and further inaction are well set out by PHE in their report.  The Government’s childhood obesity strategy needs to take PHE’s eight action areas and run with them all immediately – including introducing a 20p per litre duty on sugary drinks, bringing in a 9pm watershed for junk food ads on TV and ensuring that there are strong marketing rules across all forms of media. Although not part of PHE’s review remit, universal infant free school meals and additional support for food and nutrition education in schools should also be core parts of the Government’s agenda.”

Media contact

For further information, and for interviews, please contact:

Malcolm Clark, co-ordinator of Children's Food Campaign
malcolm@sustainweb.org
07733322148 / 0203 5596 777

Notes

1) Public Health England’s ‘Sugar Reduction: the evidence for action’ has been published today (22 October) and is available to download.

2) Children’s Food Campaign

The Campaign aims to improve children and young people's health by campaigning for policy changes in our schools, in our communities and throughout our society that would promote healthy and sustainable food environments. The Children's Food Campaign is supported by over 100 UK-wide and national organisations. We are co-ordinated by Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming.  The Children's Food Campaign's junk food marketing campaign work is funded by the British Heart Foundation.

3) British Heart Foundation

For over 50 years the British Heart Foundation have pioneered research that’s transformed the lives of people living with heart and circulatory conditions. Our work has been central to the discoveries of vital treatments that are changing the fight against heart disease. But so many people still need our help. Around 30% of children are overweight or obese which is putting them at risk of developing cardiovascular disease in the future. We are proud to fund the Children’s Food Campaign to help us reduce the number of overweight and obese children in the UK. For more information visit www.bhf.org.uk

4) XXL Britain documentary

Nearly half the nation would support a sugar tax on fizzy drinks, according to a survey released by ITV’s Tonight Programme ahead of their XXL Britain documentary, to be shown tonight (Thu 22 Oct, 7.30pm, ITV1).