Britain deserves better than 689 failed obesity policies

Dr Dolly Theis is a researcher on diet and activity at Cambridge University
Rahil Ahmad
Dr Dolly Theis17 May 2022
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Boris Johnson has buckled under pressure from a small group of MPs and agreed to delay and potentially abandon several of his own nutrition policies. Yes, policies he personally proposed in his 2020 obesity strategy and that were passed into legislation with cross-party support just months ago. They include a ban on junk food advertising before 9pm and restrictions to buy-one-get-one-free (BOGOFs) promotions on junk food such as crisps and biscuits. The government’s own impact assessment shows that such promotions do not save people money, but encourage impulse purchases that increase what people spend and consume.

Boris Johnson is effectively flinging yet another load of policies onto the growing pile of abandoned government obesity policies. My research at the MRC Epidemiology Unit in Cambridge University found that in England, the Government has published 14 obesity strategies containing a staggering 689 obesity policies in the last 30 years. So why has diet related disease and associated health disparities got worse in that time? Well, partly because governments often do what Boris is doing - announce policies and then rarely see them through into action. What we have ended up in is a decades-long merry-go-round of policies that don’t do anything or go anywhere. To give you an example of the repetitiveness, Boris Johnson’s own obesity strategy contained almost exactly the same policies that were proposed in three obesity strategies under Theresa May but largely not actioned, and almost exactly the same as the obesity policies almost proposed by David Cameron, but he resigned before he could do so.

This is also not the first time Boris Johnson has scrapped his own obesity policies. In April 2022, the government announced that it would stop its £100 million funding grant for weight management services in England just a year after announcing it. Essentially, millions of taxpayers’ money has been spent setting up services that now have no guaranteed future. Is this how we expect government to spend taxpayer money?

Eyes in Westminster are currently on two upcoming government white papers – the food strategy white paper led by Environment & Food Secretary George Eustice and the health disparities white paper led by Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid. Will these rescue the recently scrapped obesity policies or will they contain even more announcements that don’t go anywhere? Children in this country deserve better.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in