The Government is to partner with food retailers and manufacturers to create a new ‘healthy food standard’, to tackle obesity.
The standard will be part of the 10-year plan, which is expected later this week.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has said businesses will be given freedom to meet the standard ‘however works best for them’. This could include reformulating products, changing shop layouts, offering discounts on healthy food or changing loyalty schemes to promote healthier options.
Big food businesses will also be required to report on healthy food sales to add transparency and accountability. The Government will then set targets to increase the healthiness of sales, working with the Food Strategy Advisory Board.
Health secretary Wes Streeting said: ‘Obesity has doubled since the 1990s and costs our NHS £11 billion a year, triple the budget for ambulance services. Unless we curb the rising tide of cost and demand, the NHS risks becoming unsustainable.
‘The good news is that it only takes a small change to make a big difference. If everyone who is overweight reduced their calorie intake by around 200 calories a day – the equivalent of a bottle of fizzy drink – obesity would be halved.’
He added: ‘Our brilliant supermarkets already do so much work for our communities and are trying to make their stores heathier, and we want to work with them and other businesses to create a level playing field.
‘Through our new healthy food standard, we will make the healthy choice the easy choice, because prevention is better than cure.’
Sarah Price, NHS England Director for Public Health, said: ‘A healthy diet, which includes a variety of nutritious food can help people stay well and provide long-term health benefits, which is good for them and good for the NHS.
‘That is why this move to make it easier for people to shop for healthy and nutritious food options is so important – it will help people reduce the risk of developing a range of life-altering physical conditions, such as obesity and Type 2 diabetes – both of which are on the increase in England.’
The Health Foundation welcomed government action on obesity, but said it needed to be part of a wider package of measures.
Hugh Alderwick, director of policy at the Health Foundation, said: ‘This needs to be part of a much wider package of measures to tackle obesity across the population, including stronger powers for local authorities to promote healthier food environments, investment in local public health services, and bolder use of tax and regulation, learning from the successful example of the soft drinks industry levy.
‘Government will also need to be clear on how they will enforce the new standards for retailers and manufacturers – not relying on industry self-regulation that we have seen in the past has been largely unsuccessful.
‘Stronger, more interventionist policy action is also needed on other major risk factors for disease, like alcohol use – alongside broader policies to improve the underlying social and economic conditions that shape health and inequalities, like improving housing and tackling poverty.’
The King’s Fund echoed this, saying it was ‘no silver bullet’.
Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of The King’s Fund said: ‘We welcome the ambition in these plans to drive healthier eating, which recognises that our poor population health is an outlier in Europe and that there is an urgent need to address our shocking childhood obesity rates.
‘It is encouraging to see government willing to take bold measures and use fiscal levers such as regulation to drive behaviour change – we know from the success of the ‘sugar tax’ on soft drinks that this can work.
‘However, it’s no silver bullet and must be part of a package of measures that also address the design of our neighbourhoods, density of fast food outlets and exposure to advertising – as well as funding local weight management services. ‘
She added that there would need to be a ‘level playing field’ for businesses with clarity on penalties for those who fail to act.
‘It will also be key to understand the reach and scope of these measures, particularly given that a lot of less healthy food and drink is purchased from local convenience shops and takeaways,’ she said.
‘The stark fact remains that unhealthy food is far cheaper and more readily available, and so unless this change is part of a wider, comprehensive strategy it will not be enough to support poorer communities where families simply can’t afford healthy food options.’
It comes as several ICBs are yet to finalise the weight loss jab service, following the jab becoming available from primary care services last week.
Last month it was announced that new digital smart scales would be piloted across 15 specialist clinics to support severely obese children to lose weight.
The 10-year plan, which is due to be published this week, also plans to increase patient access to information, review GP funding allocations as a way to tackle health inequalities, and enable patients to access clinical trials through the app.
