Tackling Obesity – Another missed opportunity?

Recipe for Health

Has the Labour government just missed a golden opportunity to demonstrate the major shift to prevention it had promised?

It was recently presented with a perfect opportunity by the House of Lords Food, Diet and Obesity Select Committee. The Committee’s Recipe for Health: A plan to fix our broken food system provided comprehensive, evidence-based assessment and recommendations.

In particular, the Committee identified that the food industry was dominated by a small number of very large, multinational companies – which had strong incentives to produce and sell highly profitable unhealthy products, and that these companies exerted a powerful influence over the policymaking process, using tried and tested lobbying techniques.

The Committee therefore identified that mandatory regulation is now needed – and also that food businesses that fail to meet healthy sales targets must be excluded from any discussions on the formation of policy on food, diet and obesity prevention.

Sadly, the government response has been unambitious, mainly confining itself to committing to honouring health commitments made by its Conservative predecessors - for example to implement the advertising restrictions for less healthy food and drink on TV and online without further delay. This is helpful but fails to tackle the underlying issues, so is unlikely to shift the dial much when it comes to tackling obesity. 

As Katharine Jenner, Director of the Obesity Health Alliance, observed, ‘Time and again, voluntary schemes and industry-led initiatives have proven ineffective. Without urgent action, the government risks missing a vital opportunity to curb obesity and improve the UK’s health.’

Plus ça change

In 2015 we published our Healthy and Wealthy? Report. This reviewed the health and economic implications for the UK of mass-producing food high in sugar, salt, saturated fat and refined carbohydrates. In the report we identified that:

  • The UK had become the ‘Fat Man’ of Western Europe, with male obesity rates quadrupling since 1980.
  • While exercise can help manage weight, it is what we eat and how much that is the biggest single cause of obesity – and it starts with what our mothers eat while we’re still in the womb.
  • Eating too much food high in sugar, salt, saturated fat and refined carbohydrates increases the risk of becoming overweight or obese, and cumulatively increases the risk of serious illness.
  • However, it is these foods which are most financially attractive to many big food companies, as they are cheap to produce, have a long shelf life, and can be formulated to appeal to consumer taste buds.
  • The role played by food manufacturers is therefore arguably a more important factor in the nation’s health than the role played by government and doctors.
  • Fast food companies typically employ large numbers of staff in low paid, part time jobs. This minimises National Insurance and income tax revenue to the government, while often providing State Benefit eligibility i.e. the government may unwittingly be subsidising the production of food that increases health risks.
  • Reformulation can be a challenge – but is a relatively routine process for the food industry; and new technologies continue to emerge, making it ever-easier for food companies to mass- produce food lower in sugar, salt and fat without recourse to artificial ingredients.
  • The government should therefore incentivize the UK food industry to achieve global market leadership in the production, sale and marketing of healthier food.

Ten years and six governments later, with the honourable exception of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy, we don’t seem to be much further on when it comes to the government addressing the central role of the food industry in the continuing obesity crisis.

The need for a level playing field

We have known the health risks of smoking for 70 years – but six million adults in the UK still smoke. Can we afford to wait another 70 years to tackle the health risks from food high in sugar, salt, saturated fat and refined carbohydrates?

Some years ago, a former Health Secretary commented that it was hard enough for the government to take on the tobacco industry, the government couldn’t be expected to take on the food and drink industry as well. Fortunately, the tobacco industry has been taken on, and fewer people now smoke (although still too many). Surely it is now long overdue to focus on the role of the food and drink industry.

A few years ago, the Obesity Health Alliance calculated that 30 times more money was being spent advertising food high in sugar, salt and fat than the government was spending to encourage healthy eating. This fits with our own research which found that in 2018 for example, KitKat was spending more money advertising a single chocolate bar than the entire government funding for its Change4Life healthy snacks campaign.  

Or take Christmas TV ads. One of most effective was probably from Coca Cola. There was a heart-warming storyline, humour and even a cameo appearance from Santa as a Coca Cola truck driver. It was a very effective piece of marketing.

However, from a public health perspective, what this illustrates yet again is the lack of a level playing field. It isn’t just that companies advertising sugary drinks and food high in sugar, salt and fat clearly have much bigger budgets. It’s the sophistication of the advertising that this money can buy and the fact that, unlike most public health advertising, there’s no need for facts, no need to be evidence-based. All you need to do is make people feel good and associate this feeling good with your product.

The current lack of a level playing field when it comes to messaging is another reason the government now needs to adopt the House of Lords Committee recommendations regarding the food industry.

This needn’t be an existential issue for the food and drink industry

Unlike legislation in relation to cigarettes, government legislation in relation to food and drink doesn’t represent an existential threat to an industry. People will always need to eat and drink. They will want tasty products and retailers will want a reasonable shelf life. The core skills of the food and drink industry will still be needed – simply reapplied to encourage health as well as sales.

Many of the building blocks are already in place:

  • Reformulation can be challenging but is a relatively routine process for the food industry, which often already produces different formulations of the same product to cater for different food tastes in different markets or to meet different regulatory requirements.
  • New technologies continue to emerge, which enable the amount of sugar and salt to be reduced, without requiring artificial ingredients or affecting taste. A good example is salt microspheres (which provide the same salt taste but with less salt) – developed by Tate & Lyle in partnership with Nottingham University and launched in 2012. Another is flavour delivery particles, which can cut sugar content by up to a half while retaining the same taste, as developed by Israeli company DouxMatok (now rebranded Incredo).
  • Another approach is the potential for dietary protein to control hunger as a means to help achieve weight loss - for example when Marks & Spencer, working with researchers at the University of Aberdeen, developed the ‘Fuller Longer’ range (later rename to comply with EU laws). This soon became the company’s bestselling diet range.
  • Then there’s the potential to add healthy ingredients, like fibre, fruit, vegetables and seeds.
  • The potential of reformulation more generally has been recognised by the Food & Drink Federation, for instance through the Food & Drink Federation Guide to Reformulation published by fdf Scotland.

Taken together this evidence suggests that, while the food and drink industry will sometimes have legitimate concerns, it is entirely feasible for the government to legislate to require healthier mass-produced food. This won’t replace the need for fresh, healthy food like fruit, vegetables, fish and pulses – and the need for such food to be more affordable and accessible. However, it is one practical, doable step forward. 

Michael Baber, February 2025.