The government’s childhood obesity plan has been attacked by health experts, campaigners, MPs and the boss of one of Britain’s biggest supermarkets, the BBC reports with the British Medical Association adding that the government had ‘rowed back’.
Measures, announced on August 18, include a voluntary target to cut sugar in children’s food and drink and the plan asks the food and drink industry to cut 5% of the sugar in products popular with children over the next year.
It says the ultimate target is a 20% sugar cut, with Public Health England monitoring voluntary progress over the next four years.
The plan also calls on primary schools to deliver at least 30 minutes of physical activity a day and to help parents and carers ensure children get the same amount at home. School sports will also get more funds which will be boosted by a tax on sugary drinks from 2018.
Dr Sarah Wollaston, MP and chair of the health select committee, told the BBC it was ‘really disappointing that whole sections from the original draft have been dropped’, including measures on advertising junk food to children and on promotions such as two-for-one deals.
She added: “I’m afraid it does show the hand of big industry lobbyists and that’s really disappointing.” But she welcomed measures on cutting sugar in foods and keeping the tax on sugary drinks, saying it would be some time before these took effect.
TV chef and food campaigner Jamie Oliver said he was ‘in shock’ at the ‘disappointing’ plan while Sainsbury’s CEO Michael Coupe said the plan did not go far enough.
The childhood obesity strategy also says Public Health England (PHE) will set targets for sugar content per 100g, and calorie caps for certain products. PHE will report on whether the industry is reducing sugar content through the voluntary scheme and, if insufficient progress is made, the government will consider ‘whether alternative levers need to be used’.
The plan also says a new voluntary ‘healthy schools rating scheme’ will be taken into account during school inspections.
While measures to combat obesity are welcomed, the National Council for Hypnotherapy says unwanted habits like over-eating can be changed with clinical hypnotherapy and part of the treatment can include a motivation to exercise more.
“Hypnotherapy for weight loss is about changing your habit with food for the rest of your life,” says the NCH, “so, unlike crash diets, it changes the root of your compulsive eating or lack of interest in exercise so you are free to enjoy the rest of your life.”
The NCH, which has more than 1800 therapists on its register across the UK, adds that managing weight loss is ‘one of the most effective results of hypnotherapy’ and rather than just reducing calories one could put on again in the longer term, ‘hypnosis gets you in touch with the reasons why you unconsciously eat’.
Referring to Prime Minister Theresa May’s pledge to tackle heath inequality, Dr Wollaston said the government should not make such promises then – as the ‘first litmus test of that’ – put the ‘interests of advertising marketers ahead of the interests of children’.
But Jane Ellison, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, told the BBC the plan was the ‘most ambitious programme of reformulation that any developed country has taken’.
Ms Ellison, who was formerly the public health minister involved in drawing up the strategy, said the government was acting on the ‘best advice’ from public health experts.
Asked about concerns the government had ‘watered down’ the proposals to limit junk food advertising, she said the UK already had some of the ‘toughest restrictions in the world’.