Bad diets, food affordability & substantive policy
The new Labour Government, genuinely perceived to be out of its depth after a quite uninspiring first six months or so in office, is at glacial pace starting to think about public health in terms of prevention and not cure. Such a view is welcome, if not a new one, and one senses that Health Minister in England, Wes Streeting, will in time bring forward more and more plans for the British food industry, filtered, no doubt, through National Food Strategy (NFS) author, Henry Dimbleby, and the quite useless Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).
In true Whitehall and UK national agency farce fashion, where taxpayers pay for consultations on what good wheezes the ex-Oxford University PPE clan come up with, usually stuff at the wrong end of the telescope, there is now such a ‘reccy’ on proposals by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) to beef up scriptures around the advertising and promotion of foodstuffs classed as high in saturated fats, sugar and salt, known as HFSS; much of which was suggested by the said NFS.
In its own right such steps have merit, much to the chagrin of the legal teams of manufacturers of such products. And in the big scheme of things the UK Government can and will say that it is being active and doing something after 14Y of Tory misrule.
So far, so good, but I would hazard a guess that the prohibitions around when to advertise or not, where promotions are placed or not, and can Mickey Mouse endorse a Mars Bar will also, in the big scheme of things, not take an ounce of the heavily fattened British, including, at its most saddest, very young people.
At the same time as such restrictions no doubt come in, others speak to the low affordability and accessibility of households, especially low-income ones, to fresh produce versus processed foods. Here, I have a problem with the suggestion in absolute and real terms that fruit and vegetables are especially inaccessible, there may be some food ghettos in the UK, but if folks really want an apple or cabbage over a kebab and chips, they can do so in most of the country; folks in remote areas of the western Highlands probably have more cause for concern than those in east Nottingham in such respects.
Indeed, in walking through the streets of Harehills in Leeds, with its plethora of world food restaurants and takeaways, there is no shortage of piled fruit and vegetables, which are highly affordable whilst there is no shortage of grocers within ten-minute drive too.
Equally, fresh produce is not expensive, and to suggest otherwise is nonsense in terms of what do people spend their money on, especially in a food context compared to say confectionery and snacks, which are not especially cheap, particularly after 5Y of food inflation. And yet campaign groups bleat on about such things, again, from the wrong end of the telescope.
The reality is too many people simply prefer the convenience and taste of fast food, junk food, HFSS food, call it what one wants, over taking the time to procure and prepare proper nutritious dishes for themselves and their families, again young children are prone to particularly suffer in this respect. More to the point if households have a genuine food affordability problem, then that is a welfare, not a food industry matter.
So, if the UK Government was deadly serious in its intent to improve the nation’s health and so reduce the ongoing health bill, never mind the eroding quality of many peoples’ lives through obesity related illness, it needs a wholly different approach, that embraces all public agencies, from what food is served and sold in schools, hospitals and prisons, to the return of home economics and food studies on the curriculum, so new parents are better equipped to feed themselves and the next generation.
Weaning folks off HFSS diets may seriously impinge upon the fast-food sector, seriously raise prices, so more inflation, and make Ministers’ and officials, the latter of which are barely fit for purpose, all the more unpopular. All this requires serious thinking, strategic, joined up, long-term, and not the rubbish that repeatedly is churned out by DEFRA et al.
So, just how up for change is Mr.,Streeting, and his band of often highly publicly funded disciples? When will costly but easy decisions for others, so branded food manufacturers with respect to advertising, be replaced by serious, strategic, hard, and unpopular choices, where public bodies and officials are held to account and rewarded or otherwise on performance.
Hmm, don’t hold your breath…
Dr Clive Black
Senior Advisor
Coriolis Consulting
February 2025
