The food industry targets cheap junk food at children and adults and this has caused the wave of obesity in the UK (Experts condemn ‘watering down’ of obesity strategy, 18 August). The taxpayer pays for the consequences and this is eroding the NHS. This is a prime example of the “tragedy of the commons”, in which the exploitative activity of the few damages the interests of the many. The government intends to continue to protect the food industry and so is ignoring this tragedy of the commons. So much for the promise made by Theresa May when she became Tory leader to “unite our country … not for the privileged few but … for every one of us”.
She has fallen at the first hurdle. She is following Michael Gove’s pre-Brexit advice that “people in this country have had enough of experts”. She has not challenged the might of the food lobby.
Predictably the food lobby continues to complain about the nanny state, just as did the tobacco lobby. The government had to be nanny when it introduced anti-smoking laws, vaccination programmes, seatbelt laws, clean air acts and all those other laws that make life worthwhile.
The government eventually took on and defeated the smoking lobby. It will have to do the same with the food lobby. The food industry has a big advantage over tobacco in that people will still have to eat, so big food can carry on selling food and making profits, but it will be healthy food. Why are we waiting?
Ann and Neil Holmes
Bromsgrove, Worcestershire
• The government’s obesity strategy published today was an opportunity to tackle childhood obesity and household food insecurity that has been missed. While welcoming some positive elements in the strategy, such as the targets for reducing sugar content in food and drink, and the commitment to the Healthy Start scheme, we are dismayed by the government’s lack of ambition.
We know from the significant bank of evidence that exists on childhood obesity that in order to tackle it we need limits on food marketing to children, continuation of vital public health schemes, and strong targets for the reduction of childhood obesity. Instead the government’s strategy relies on voluntarism, an approach that has so far failed to make any real inroad into childhood obesity.
We need a strategy that can stand up against the major spending power of the big food and drink brands. The seven biggest brands alone spend more than £300m a year on marketing, over 10 times the amount spent on the government’s flagship healthy eating initiative. But this strategy has failed to deliver.
It is time for the government to make a real statement on tackling childhood obesity in the UK. We simply can’t afford not to.
Geoff Tansey Chair, Fabian Commission on Food and Poverty
Jeanette Orrey Co-founder, Food for Life
John Middleton President, Faculty of Public Health
• Expecting the food industry to police itself with regard to junk food is like waiting for the oil industry to tell people not to drive their cars or for arms sellers to advise gun owners not to shoot.
Is it too idealistic to hope for a more ethical form of capitalism whereby manufacturers have a moral responsibility to avoid – or at least limit – any harm caused through the production and sale of their goods? Given how unlikely this is in a world driven by economic growth and profit margins, we need a government that will exercise the necessary controls to protect citizens from the excesses of the corporate world.
Fiona Carnie
Bath
• The UK faces a massive obesity crisis which Action on Sugar says could “bankrupt the NHS”. However, we need to think not just about reducing sugar consumption, but promoting physical activity too.
We have invested strategically, and successfully, in promoting Olympic cycling. Yet all over Britain, parents are deterred from allowing their children to cycle to school for fear of road danger.
The Dutch spend £24 per person annually on creating a cycle-friendly environment, and 49% of pupils there cycle to school. By contrast, the UK government proposes investment in its draft Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS) of just £2 per person next year, falling to a paltry 72p by 2020. It’s hardly surprising that 1% of school trips in Britain are cycled, and our obesity rates are significantly higher.
As part of its obesity plan, shouldn’t the government use some of its sugar tax revenues for enabling non-athletes of all ages to cycle safely for day-to-day journeys? That would be a hugely cost-effective way not only to tackle obesity, but also congestion, air pollution and climate change. By creating people-friendly streets and communities, it would surely be a fantastic vote-winner too.
Roger Geffen
Policy director, Cycling UK
• The government has started consulting on the introduction of a tax on sugary drinks. We are already seeing marketing for sugar-free drinks as being healthier than the originals, and they will now be cheaper. But there is no evidence that artificial sweeteners are healthier than sugar, so we can help the manufacturers with their marketing while doing nothing to improve children’s health.
Michael Peel
Winscombe, Somerset
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
UK’s sad lack of ambition in tackling obesity | Letters
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