New measures to tackle childhood obesity released

Building on the first chapter of the childhood obesity plan, Health and Social Care Secretary Jeremy Hunt has announced new measures to tackle childhood obesity, which include proposals to stop stores from displaying unhealthy food at checkouts or including it in buy-one-get-one-free deals.

Other measures out for consultation include introducing clear, consistent calorie labelling on menus in restaurants, cafés and takeaways and banning the sale of caffeine-laden energy drinks to children.

The government is calling on industry to recognise the harm that adverts for foods high in fat, sugar and salt can cause. It will consult on introducing new TV and online advertising restrictions to prevent children from being targeted by these unhealthy products, and to incentivise companies to reduce the sugar and calories in the products they sell. This could include extending the current advertising watershed and considering limiting the number of unhealthy food adverts shown during children’s programmes up to 9pm.

The second chapter of the plan also promotes a new national ambition for every primary school to adopt a daily ‘active mile’ initiative, such as the Daily Mile. This is supported by £620,000 funding for Living Street’s Walk to School project, as well as £1 million to support the Department for Transport’s Bikeability cycling training programme, expected to fund an additional 25,000 training places.

The aim of the plan is to halve the number of obese children by 2030.

Government will launch a three-year programme to work closely with local authority partners to show what can be achieved within existing powers with a particular focus on inequalities, finding solutions to barriers and sharing best practice with others.