Let’s get back on the bus. Figuratively speaking. It’s where we will soon no longer be free to snack, if Sally Davies gets her way. Not that it seems likely she will. When the chief medical officer last week recommended that food and drink be banned from some forms of public transport, she faced a barrage of criticism for such an impractical idea.
While justified, the backlash was also unfortunate insomuch as it distracted from the more sensible suggestions in Davies’ report, ‘Time to Solve Childhood Obesity’. These included addressing the role takeaway food plays in threatening youngsters’ health.
She endorsed an update to the National Planning Policy Framework “and relevant planning practice guidance” to ensure setting up a takeaway business becomes less easy. It would also mean “a food business selling healthier food is recognised as different from a business selling unhealthy options”, and that a takeaway that adds tables and chairs is not automatically reclassified as a restaurant.
Less dryly, Davies’ report recognised that secondary schools pupils “encouraged by social pressure will buy less healthy meals from takeaways” – and, as such, some local authorities were restricting takeaways near schools.
CMO report highlights the big fat divide between industry and government obesity ideas
Which is a start. But only a start. A Unicef report published today (15 October) warns of “food swamps” – areas in which there are an abundance of outlets selling only highly processed, low-nutrient food for affordable prices. These are typically found in poorer areas, where children “are twice as likely to be obese and suffer the long-term health consequences of a poor diet” according to Liam Sollis, head of policy at Unicef UK.
“Every year, the government’s failure to act means more children being pushed into a life of ill health through no fault of their own” he adds. “There have been some strides in tackling this, but more needs to be done.”
Those strides, it should be pointed out, have largely been grocery-focused: the soft drinks levy, PHE guidelines on reformulation, the ASA ban on online ads for HFSS products, repeated recommendations to introduce plain packs for sugary drinks…
Meanwhile, takeaway food has been subject to far fewer changes and restrictions, one could argue.
But we can surely all agree that children of low-income households having easy access to junk food is a considerably greater cause for concern than London commuters snacking on the number 73 to Stoke Newington.
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