>>An industry mantra that smacks of Ratner…Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy, City University
Bit by bit, the enormity of the obesity problem is being realised in Britain. Last week retailers, including Tesco and Asda, were up before the Commons Health Select Committee. The week before it was the turn of four fast food industry moguls.
A few weeks before that the advertisers gave evidence and before them, consumer and public interest NGOs.
More will follow. The committee has visited the US and was mightily interested in what it heard and saw.
The Health Select Committee inquiry is becoming a discussion point in itself and what was to have been a quick inquiry has had to be lengthened.
Wonderful though Select Committees are, they are not government, merely mirrors on governance. But the Health Select Committee’s report will be the first, though not the last, stirring of the political process on obesity.
The central facts are well known. The medical evidence is solid. Obesity happens when there is excess energy intake (food) compared to energy output (physical activity). Obesity is the forerunner of a string of diseases, including early onset diabetes, heart disease and bone problems. So it heralds big financial outlay for the NHS in treatment or healthcare costs.
The Treasury is worried. There’s talk of fat taxes, taxing ads and all sorts.
What makes the issue so hot now is that the rate of obesity is rocketing, reversing hard-won progress. And the forces lining up in the debate are formidable.
Until recently, obesity was seen as a minor issue, of concern only to a few whingeing academics or trouble-making pressure groups who could be swatted or bought off. Drugs can deal with this! Sponsor sports! Collect coupons to get a football! Food companies could absolve themselves by repeating the mantra that there is no bad food only a bad diet, and that consumers should eat sensibly and take exercise.
Tacitly, this puts the responsibility for churning out goods stuffed with fat and sugar onto the consumer.
No-one quite said it, but this line gets close to the Gerald Ratner school of consumer contempt… ‘Well, if you eat this rubbish, what do you expect?’ This is obviously an untenable position in food.
It is the evidence on marketing that has broken the policy log-jam. Everyone agrees
consumers need to be informed. But frankly, the chance of having a label on confectionery or fast food that says, as with cigarettes, ‘Don’t eat this too much or you’re likely to get fat, diabetic or die prematurely’ is slim.
As one advertising executive said to me many years ago: “Death connotations don’t sell foods.” Quite.
But public health bodies are now clear. As I argued in my ESRC lecture at the Royal Society two weeks ago, when industry spends half a billion pounds on food ads a year, the vast majority of which are for, well, just let’s say less than desirable foods, where is the level playing field for access to information? My estimate is that, at best, £7m a year is spent on promoting food for health by government and consumer groups. Mintel’s latest report on after-school snacking shows how the top brand alone spent over £11m in only the first six months of this year.
Depending how you estimate it, the top soft drinks company alone spends between £23m and £40m. These sums are for single brands alone. This is great for the bottom line and market share, but, as the moguls before the Health Select Committee are finding, you can’t then expect an easy time if you later want to argue that sales are ‘nothing to do with me, guv’.
Bit by bit, the enormity of the obesity problem is being realised in Britain. Last week retailers, including Tesco and Asda, were up before the Commons Health Select Committee. The week before it was the turn of four fast food industry moguls.
A few weeks before that the advertisers gave evidence and before them, consumer and public interest NGOs.
More will follow. The committee has visited the US and was mightily interested in what it heard and saw.
The Health Select Committee inquiry is becoming a discussion point in itself and what was to have been a quick inquiry has had to be lengthened.
Wonderful though Select Committees are, they are not government, merely mirrors on governance. But the Health Select Committee’s report will be the first, though not the last, stirring of the political process on obesity.
The central facts are well known. The medical evidence is solid. Obesity happens when there is excess energy intake (food) compared to energy output (physical activity). Obesity is the forerunner of a string of diseases, including early onset diabetes, heart disease and bone problems. So it heralds big financial outlay for the NHS in treatment or healthcare costs.
The Treasury is worried. There’s talk of fat taxes, taxing ads and all sorts.
What makes the issue so hot now is that the rate of obesity is rocketing, reversing hard-won progress. And the forces lining up in the debate are formidable.
Until recently, obesity was seen as a minor issue, of concern only to a few whingeing academics or trouble-making pressure groups who could be swatted or bought off. Drugs can deal with this! Sponsor sports! Collect coupons to get a football! Food companies could absolve themselves by repeating the mantra that there is no bad food only a bad diet, and that consumers should eat sensibly and take exercise.
Tacitly, this puts the responsibility for churning out goods stuffed with fat and sugar onto the consumer.
No-one quite said it, but this line gets close to the Gerald Ratner school of consumer contempt… ‘Well, if you eat this rubbish, what do you expect?’ This is obviously an untenable position in food.
It is the evidence on marketing that has broken the policy log-jam. Everyone agrees
consumers need to be informed. But frankly, the chance of having a label on confectionery or fast food that says, as with cigarettes, ‘Don’t eat this too much or you’re likely to get fat, diabetic or die prematurely’ is slim.
As one advertising executive said to me many years ago: “Death connotations don’t sell foods.” Quite.
But public health bodies are now clear. As I argued in my ESRC lecture at the Royal Society two weeks ago, when industry spends half a billion pounds on food ads a year, the vast majority of which are for, well, just let’s say less than desirable foods, where is the level playing field for access to information? My estimate is that, at best, £7m a year is spent on promoting food for health by government and consumer groups. Mintel’s latest report on after-school snacking shows how the top brand alone spent over £11m in only the first six months of this year.
Depending how you estimate it, the top soft drinks company alone spends between £23m and £40m. These sums are for single brands alone. This is great for the bottom line and market share, but, as the moguls before the Health Select Committee are finding, you can’t then expect an easy time if you later want to argue that sales are ‘nothing to do with me, guv’.
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