Considering how the national newspapers have latched on to virtually any new development – however tenuous – in the war on sugar this year, it seems strange how little attention has been paid to this week’s report by think tank 2020health on the need for a radical new approach to tackle obesity.
It wasn’t necessarily the call for the Responsibility Deal to be made law, or the call for a new cross-party obesity taskforce, that should have stirred up some interest – bold as they were.
It wasn’t even the call for a hypothecated tax to be raised from products found to be “harmful to health”, which would be used to fund anti-obesity measures.
The really significant thing was that this research, although produced independently, was funded by one of the world’s biggest sugar companies, AB Sugar.
AB, when pushed by The Grocer, made little effort to distance itself too much from some of the report’s proposals, saying it would “welcome the opportunity” to discuss turning the much-maligned Responsibility Deal into law.
Perhaps AB would welcome a shift away from what it fears is an unjust concentration of fire against sugar as an ingredient.
Make no mistake, it would be a huge step for the industry to accept a new regulatory approach. Yet it reflects a growing feeling in some quarters that it would be better for the government to legislate on matters concerning obesity than persist with a voluntary approach – an approach that is all too often led by the same few players, who end up being pilloried by the health lobby anyway.
AB drew the line at the idea of a tax on “unhealthy” products (how on earth would you decide which products caused harm and in what way?). But its overall response did not sound like a company that regretted unleashing the think tank’s researchers.
The question remains: just how likely are the report’s proposals to see the light of day? The Responsibility Deal has been looking increasingly bereft of support from ministers of late, and turning it into a legal framework would be a minefield. Where would the government start? Would voluntary commitments made by companies on issues such as calorie reduction, reformulation and portion sizes suddenly become back-dated laws that everyone must abide by? And what about the passionately held view in industry and government circles that a voluntary approach could achieve progress faster than the statute book?
Adopting the report’s recommendations would be a pretty big U-turn, even for this government. But stranger things have happened. Intriguingly, the Conservative Home website was one of the few sources to pick up on the 2020health proposals, publishing a long article by the report’s authors. With the manoeuvring on public health about to get into full swing in the run-up to the general election, it will be interesting to see if the Conservatives rethink their previous opposition to anything smacking of the nanny state.
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