>>The food industry’s an ostrich when it comes to obesity - Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy, City University
I am amused and perplexed to see how defensive so many inside the industry are being about food and public health. I have not heard or seen so much hot air for a long time.
We all know that the food supply chain is highly fragmented and has internal tensions. Farming, processing, logistics, retailing, foodservice - all fight over mouths, minds and markets.
So why is it that health issues seem to have so many in such a froth?
Let us be clear. The evidence is absolutely solid that diet is heavily implicated in premature death and in very expensive health care.
Researchers might argue about how big this effect is, but no one can reasonably argue that diet somehow has no impact on population health.
The evidence is good, it is replicated in different countries and it grows rather than diminishes.
The issue is what to do about it, which is where so many food people get hot and bothered. Wild talk says ‘if we don’t kill this health business, then food will be the next tobacco’.
This is incendiary but nonsense. True, there are litigation threats, but only in the litigious US. True, you don’t like the state interest. But the Treasury and Department of Health are acutely aware of the huge diet-related costs.
As an advisor to the Health Committee’s obesity inquiry, I noted the costs: obesity costs around £7bn a year, heart disease £11bn. The two Treasury inquiries by former NatWest head Derek Wanless looked at diet because the force of evidence struck them. This is an unnecessary burden on society and taxpayers.
As we wait for the Public Health White Paper - seemingly endlessly put off since May - now is the time for cool heads to be kept all round.
The political stakes are high. Not just for the politicians but for the food industry.
If you are seen to be denying that there is an issue, or blaming parents, you will be sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind. Shooting the messenger is worse!
If you don’t accept this from me, please note that investment companies have gone through a rapid learning curve, not only in Europe and the US, but also globally.
The obesity epidemic, for instance, is not just happening in the United Kingdom but
in countries associated with under-consumption rather than over or malconsumption, places such as India, Brazil, China and the Middle East - markets that big companies want to enter.
My view is that this mess took a long time to come. It will not be sorted out quickly, either. As Mike Heasman and I argue in our ‘Food Wars’ book, the food sectors were asked to increase production and put quantity before quality.
What we call the productionist paradigm was adopted slowly over two decades from the 1930s and was mainstream from the 1950s. But it has now run out of steam.
The new agenda requires different thinking, a different set of public policy goals. Big choices loom, such as how to link public and environmental health, whether the pursuit of ever-cheaper foods has to stop and whether we have too many products chasing consumers who cannot translate them into healthy diets.
The Public Health White Paper will be the first of many steps with which this country, like others, struggles to replace the productionist paradigm with a new one.
If you want to be involved in that debate, defensiveness is inappropriate.
I am interested in how and why a sector claiming to be clever is being so silly and reluctant to face the facts.
Even the proverbial ostrich doesn’t stick its head in the sand.
I am amused and perplexed to see how defensive so many inside the industry are being about food and public health. I have not heard or seen so much hot air for a long time.
We all know that the food supply chain is highly fragmented and has internal tensions. Farming, processing, logistics, retailing, foodservice - all fight over mouths, minds and markets.
So why is it that health issues seem to have so many in such a froth?
Let us be clear. The evidence is absolutely solid that diet is heavily implicated in premature death and in very expensive health care.
Researchers might argue about how big this effect is, but no one can reasonably argue that diet somehow has no impact on population health.
The evidence is good, it is replicated in different countries and it grows rather than diminishes.
The issue is what to do about it, which is where so many food people get hot and bothered. Wild talk says ‘if we don’t kill this health business, then food will be the next tobacco’.
This is incendiary but nonsense. True, there are litigation threats, but only in the litigious US. True, you don’t like the state interest. But the Treasury and Department of Health are acutely aware of the huge diet-related costs.
As an advisor to the Health Committee’s obesity inquiry, I noted the costs: obesity costs around £7bn a year, heart disease £11bn. The two Treasury inquiries by former NatWest head Derek Wanless looked at diet because the force of evidence struck them. This is an unnecessary burden on society and taxpayers.
As we wait for the Public Health White Paper - seemingly endlessly put off since May - now is the time for cool heads to be kept all round.
The political stakes are high. Not just for the politicians but for the food industry.
If you are seen to be denying that there is an issue, or blaming parents, you will be sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind. Shooting the messenger is worse!
If you don’t accept this from me, please note that investment companies have gone through a rapid learning curve, not only in Europe and the US, but also globally.
The obesity epidemic, for instance, is not just happening in the United Kingdom but
in countries associated with under-consumption rather than over or malconsumption, places such as India, Brazil, China and the Middle East - markets that big companies want to enter.
My view is that this mess took a long time to come. It will not be sorted out quickly, either. As Mike Heasman and I argue in our ‘Food Wars’ book, the food sectors were asked to increase production and put quantity before quality.
What we call the productionist paradigm was adopted slowly over two decades from the 1930s and was mainstream from the 1950s. But it has now run out of steam.
The new agenda requires different thinking, a different set of public policy goals. Big choices loom, such as how to link public and environmental health, whether the pursuit of ever-cheaper foods has to stop and whether we have too many products chasing consumers who cannot translate them into healthy diets.
The Public Health White Paper will be the first of many steps with which this country, like others, struggles to replace the productionist paradigm with a new one.
If you want to be involved in that debate, defensiveness is inappropriate.
I am interested in how and why a sector claiming to be clever is being so silly and reluctant to face the facts.
Even the proverbial ostrich doesn’t stick its head in the sand.
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