Curb supermarket discounts on salty, fatty foods say MPs
- Health committee accuses Government of failing to tackle child obesity
- It calls on regulation to stop supermarkets from promoting junk food
- Health minister said Government was delivering world’s ‘most ambitious plan’
Ben Spencer Medical Correspondent For The Daily Mail
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Supermarkets should be banned from heavily promoting sugary, fatty and salty food, MPs will demand today.
Tough rules are needed to regulate retailers and stop them offering deep discounts and multi-buy deals on unhealthy junk food, the Commons health committee says.
In a report published this morning the committee accuses the Government of failing to tackle the booming child obesity problem. It says the flagship childhood obesity strategy published by Theresa May last summer was ‘underwhelming’, missing a key opportunity to deal with unhealthy diets head-on.
MPs will demand supermarkets should be banned from heavily promoting sugary, fatty and salty food
Instead, the plan was characterised by voluntary agreements to cut sugar in food – an arrangement which MPs say does not go nearly far enough.
The committee has demanded that ministers draw up tougher rules to tackle the problem, a suggestion that was last night backed by doctors and health charities.
Child obesity is on the rise, with one in ten obese when they start primary school and one in five obese by the time they leave. This is fuelling a time bomb of future health problems such as type two diabetes, cancer and heart disease.
Part of the problem is that an astonishing 40 per cent of the food sold in Britain is on promotion, the report says.
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This drives people to buy more and more, rather than tempting them to switch brands. The committee called on the Government to introduce regulations banning many of these deals because voluntary arrangements would not go far enough. MPs also called for an outright ban on displays of confectionery at checkouts – the so-called ‘guilt aisles’ which tempt children into nagging for sweets.
And they reiterated calls for junk food adverts to be banned before the 9pm watershed, which would reduce the number of unhealthy food adverts seen by children by 82 per cent.
They welcomed the Government’s tax on sugary drinks due in 2018, but said far more needs to be done.
The report said: ‘Given the amount of our food and drink that is purchased on discounts and promotions, we urge the Government to … regulate to further reduce the impact of deep discounting and price promotions on the sales of unhealthy food and drink.
‘Industry representatives themselves told us this is necessary to prevent policies to reduce discounting from being undermined. Retailers who act responsibly on discounting and promotions should not be put at a competitive disadvantage to those who do not.’
MPs reiterated calls for junk food adverts to be banned before the 9pm watershed, which would reduce the number of unhealthy food adverts seen by children by 82 per cent
It added: ‘Measures should be taken to reduce and rebalance the number and type of promotions in all retail outlets, including restaurants, cafes and takeaways. In our view this should not be limited to products which are high in sugar, but also those high in salt and fat. Voluntary controls are unlikely to work in this area and the Government should introduce mandatory controls.’
Last night Dr Sarah Wollaston, a Tory MP and chairman of the committee, said many of the suggestions in the report had been made before but had been ignored.
‘We are extremely disappointed that the Government has rejected a number of our recommendations,’ she added. ‘These omissions mean that the current plan misses important opportunities to tackle childhood obesity.’
Professor Parveen Kumar, of the British Medical Association, welcomed the committee’s call for more robust action. A spokesman for the Obesity Health Alliance, a coalition of health charities, said: ‘Current loopholes in junk food marketing restrictions leave children exposed to unhealthy food and drinks during the programmes they watch the most.’
Health minister Nicola Blackwood said the Government is ‘delivering the most ambitious plan on childhood obesity in the world … backed by the soft-drinks industry levy as well as the most comprehensive reformulation programme of its kind. Voluntary approaches have been shown to be very effective, but we have not ruled out further measures.’
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