I missed the fact that the House of Lords Food, Diet and Obesity Committee published a report entitled 'Recipe for health: a plan to fix our broken food system' on 24 October this year.
The Report is not perfect: it does not understand the role of fat in our diet and probably over-emphasises the role of carbohydrates. As a result, but this point apart, it is exceptionally good.
The whole report - which I spent last night reading - is laden with quotable paragraphs, so I will have to be decidedly selective. This is the core finding:
Obesity and its consequences constitute a public health emergency that represents a ticking time bomb for the nation's health, wellbeing and finances. This emergency is primarily driven by over-consumption of unhealthy foods.
In light of this, our central recommendation is that the Government must as a matter of urgency adopt a new, comprehensive and integrated food strategy to address the wide-ranging consequences of the food system failures identified in this report. Implementation of such a strategy will only be successful on the basis of strong and accountable leadership at the highest level of government.
It is in the context of the need for urgent and bold action that we make this report for debate.
As they then note:
Over the last 30 years, successive governments have proposed around 700 policies to tackle obesity. Yet in spite of all these initiatives, the obesity crisis has intensified during that period. At the heart of this failure of government policy are:
- A continued focus on failed policies founded on individual responsibility and voluntary regulation arising from an unjustified fear of the so-called ‘nanny state';
- A lack of a coherent strategy to tackle obesity across the life course and embracing all dimensions of the food system;
- A lack of leadership and direction at the centre of government, resulting in inadequate coordination across key government departments; and
- A lack of a long-term strategic approach to oversight and regulation of the food system.
We recommend:
(a)The Government should introduce a new overarching legislative framework for a healthier food system.
(b)This legislation should require that the Government publish a new, comprehensive and integrated long-term food strategy, setting out targets for the food system and the Government's plans to introduce, implement and enforce policy interventions to achieve those targets.
(c)As part of this new legislative framework, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) should be given oversight of the food system. This oversight role should be transparent and independent of industry. It should include monitoring and reporting annually to Parliament against targets for sales of healthier and less healthy foods, on the overall healthiness of diets, on related national health outcomes, and on progress against Government strategy.
(d)The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care should be accountable to Parliament for progress made against these objectives, at the apex of an effective cross-departmental governance structure (including a dedicated Cabinet Committee) on food policy, supported by a properly resourced Office for Health Improvement and Disparities.
(e)The Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer should play key leadership roles in enforcing and delivering this programme.
(f)An obligation should be placed on the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to lay before Parliament a Government response to Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) recommendations within two months of their publication.
Note that they explicitly blame the neoliberal age3nda and the far-right culture emanating from Tufton Street for the crisis that we face.
When discussing the food industry, they say:
The food industry bears major responsibility for the obesity public health emergency:
- The junk food cycle incentivises the food industry to develop and market unhealthy products through increasingly sophisticated techniques.
- This has created an obesogenic food environment, with devastating implications for dietary patterns and health outcomes.
- The food industry should be expected to take action to break this negative cycle. Yet, notwithstanding some examples of positive action, the profit incentives in the system have been too strong for any such action to have had a substantive effect. There is now a case for making the food industry bear a fair share of the cost of tackling this crisis through new taxation and regulation. Given this, the food industry must take responsibility for the costs of compliance with future regulation.
- One symptom of the problem is the way that the food industry seeks through sophisticated lobbying strategies to influence both Government policymaking and academic research for its own ends. Evidence suggests that such lobbying has been influential.
- This underlines the need for more scientific research independent of industry on food, diet and health, and on food and health policy, and to ensure that there are effective funding mechanisms in place for such research to be undertaken.
- There is a clear conflict of interest in Government engagement with industry during the policy development process. While it may be appropriate to engage with industry regarding the practical application of food industry regulation once it has been decided upon, this must be subject to full transparency and clear rules of engagement.
The Government must:
(a)Now make a decisive shift away from voluntary measures to a system of mandatory regulation of the food industry.
(b)Fundamentally reshape the incentives for the food industry through a coherent and integrated set of policy interventions to reduce the production and consumption of less healthy foods, and drive production and sales of healthier foods.
(c)Exclude food businesses that derive more than a proportion of sales (to be defined by the Food Standards Agency) from less healthy products from any discussions on the formation of policy on food, diet and obesity prevention. This should also apply to the industry associations that represent these businesses.
(d)Devise and publish by the end of 2025 a code of conduct on ministerial and officials' meetings (whether in-person or virtually) with food businesses, to be employed consistently across all government departments. The minutes of all such meetings should be published.
I think that recommendation (c) is pivotal.
And when it comes to ultra-processed foods, they say:
The concept of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) is a matter of intensive public discussion and scientific debate. The evidence we have heard suggests:
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The concept of UPFs (based on the NOVA classification) can be a useful tool for describing the way in which the food system incentivises the production and marketing of cheaply produced, highly palatable, energy dense and nutritionally poor foods, and drives unhealthy diets and obesity.
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However, it is widely considered that the NOVA classification of UPFs lacks sufficient precision to be suitable for the characterisation or regulation of individual foods. There therefore remains debate over the extent to which it should be used in policymaking.
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Notwithstanding these limitations, the rapidly growing epidemiological evidence showing a correlation between consumption of UPFs defined using the NOVA classification and poor health outcomes is alarming. There is a significant overlap between UPFs and foods high in calories, saturated fat, salt and sugar and low in fruit, vegetables, nuts, fibre and protein (HFSS). Many UPFs are therefore already considered less healthy under the UK's dietary guidelines and the regulations they underpin.
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Beyond energy and nutrient content, causal links between other properties of UPFs and poor health outcomes have not thus far been clearly demonstrated and the existence of such links remains scientifically uncertain.
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There are also strong views on both sides of the argument over whether industry has influenced the scientific research on UPFs.
The evidence is, in their opinion, overwhelming. The need for reform is urgent. The cause of our problem is not that we do not have cures for obesity - as Wes Streeting would have it with his drug-based solutions - but that the food industry is poisoning us.
The answer is not drug-based in that case. It has to come down to improving the quality of our food. When will Wes Streeting take note?
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An excellent outline of the issues. On a personal level I try to eat as few as the ultra-processed foods as possible, but you can see all the fast food outlets around and in supermarkets products which yes are tasty and do not require preparation but are probably not the best ones to consume.
Will the government act – probably not. Keir Starmer said we can cut carbon emissions without telling people to change their lifestyles – really. A bit like saying ‘we want people to think about not drinking alcohol before getting in their car, but we won’t tell them what to do!’.
I had to buy fuel this morning. Thankfully, I don’t do it very oftyen. The fuel station is also an M&S. Most food items on sale were ultra-processed.
I messaged someone this morning to ask him if this is the committee he lobbied on behalf of a food charity, apparently it is. Ironically their next problem is, if as a country we we try to move people away from sugar and starch we only have enough nutritious food available to provide 40% to 50% of the nutrients required by the UK population. Is it right that we use some of our agricultural capacity to grow fuel for vehicles?
https://search.app?link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gov.uk%2Fgovernment%2Fstatistics%2Fbioenergy-crops-in-england-and-the-uk-2008-2023%2Fbioenergy-crops-in-england-and-the-uk-2008-2023%23%3A~%3Atext%3DIn%25202023%252C%2520153%2520million%2520litres%2Cproduced%2520from%2520UK%2520grown%2520crops.&utm_campaign=aga&utm_source=agsadl1%2Csh%2Fx%2Fgs%2Fm2%2F4
It appears to me there is something fundamentally wrong with our agricultural policy, given the climate crisis we are facing. No doubt these carbon producing fuels are labelled as green alternatives. Food security seriously needs addressing as well.
Food policy needs transformation
Wow, am left speechless I never thought that any govt body would ever even go as far as what you have described let alone our own U.K. lords.
It’s a very good start at least and hopefully their recommendations will be taken on.
More public education on dopamine stimuli issues behind compulsive consumption issues should be addressed as well in the future hopefully.
Anyhow a great start so thanks for posting this one, most appreciated
Missing from this report is the whole question of actually cooking food. A lot of the school curriculum with regard to Home Economics is less practical than it once was. And it is not held in high esteem. Most modern schoolchildren are likely to have 2 working parents who will save time by buying pre-prepared food (which often works out cheaper than fresh food), so they never see it being prepared. So even if they knew what to buy and – often a problem – had shops where they could buy it at a reasonable price- it might not be a lot of use to them. This urgently needs addressing.
Seat belts, drink driving, smoking, alcohol – legislation to control all these safety issues was opposed for decades, actively lobbied against by corporate interests, and ignored by faint-hearted politicians. If we expect government to act on the issue of dangerous “food” production, then is important we understand how those other matters were eventually legislated upon, and accepted by the general public. It took decades for any effective change to happen. We can’t afford to wait that long.
Big Food is up there with Big Tobacco, Big Pharma in controlling the medium and the message.
Know your enemy – these mega food producers are non household names, although many of their produts are:
“The largest food & beverage company in the UK is Associated British Foods, owner of Kingsmill among a host of other household brands, with an annual turnover of £3.3 billion. Boparan Holdings, which famously produces Fox’s biscuits, follows closely behind with £3.2 billion, while Arla – the largest producer of dairy products in Scandinavia – records a UK turnover of around £2.5 billion.
The world’s largest sandwich producer Greencore Convenience Foods is the last member of the food & beverage top 10 to top the £2 billion mark, while Müller UK & Ireland, the producers of a well-known series of yoghurt and rice-based deserts, rounds off the top five with a turnover of £1.9 billion. Completing the top 10 are Anglo-Dutch firm Unilever, Coca-Cola Enterprises, Bakkavor, Mondelez UK and Nestle UK.”
Legislation could start with regulating advertising of junk food, as we do cigarettes and alcohol. It could require supermarkets to move items of junk food away from the reach of children, and away from the checkout.
And above all, increase public awareness of the dangers. We put pictures of cancerous lungs on cigarette packaging. It worked.
Bizarrely, ABF is also Primark
Industry (food and pharmaceuticals) wants to treat symptoms and not the cause, because it is a guaranteed income stream.
To this end, nutrition advice can be highly misleading, and is designed to be so.
Just recently a new paper suggested that red meat can contribute to type 2 diabetes.
Only by reading the whole paper do you discover that “red meat” includes processed meat and burgers. Is it the red meat or the refined burger bun (together with fries), that might be the contributing factor?
Recommended reading:
The Big Fat Surprise: why butter, meat, and cheese belong in a healthy diet (2015) by Nina Teicholz
https://amzn.eu/d/hZfaS3E
The Salt Fix: Why the Experts Got it All Wrong and How Eating More Might Save Your Life (2017) by Dr James DiNicolantonio
https://amzn.eu/d/aMVTpkJ
Thanks
A helpful summary of what appears a good report. Our broken food system is part of the health problem. Another I’ll describe as it broken mobility system. Designing our first-round the car has designed out the gentle everyday exercise provided by walking and cycling (including that around the use of public transport of longer journeys).
England, Chief Health Officer, Sir Chris Whitty gets this (as do most relevant experts). In his 2023 annual report he. argues that it should not be accepted that becoming older comes with poor health.
“While diseases, long-term conditions and disabilities become more common and accumulate as we become older, they are far from inevitable – even in later years,” he said.
He urged people to rely on methods known to work. “They are old-fashioned things, actually. Having lots of exercise, having mental stimulation and a social network, eating a reasonably balanced diet [with] not too much high fat, sugar and salt, moderating alcohol, stopping smoking if you do”.
“These are things which are old-fashioned, but they still work.”
I really appreciate you bringing this up Richard.
I have an on/off relationship with sugar in my coffee/tea and am one of those whose who frequently eats and works through his lunch break and does not always make the wisest of choices!
I was there
At uni, it took me about 6 weeks to get used to tea without sugar, and about 6 months for coffee, after which, I found the sweetness most unpleasant.
Well worth the effort.
I share that experience. My parents taught us to have sugar on everything – even cereals (I shudder). I gave up at university – and milk too, but that was practical because I never had any.
I started work in a Civil Service office in 1974. There was teh requisite tea club, that we all contributed to. That was when the ‘sugar crisis’ hit and sugar was almost impossible to find. I stopped haveing suigar in coffe overnight. Friends didn’t believe me when I told them I can tell if someone has stirrd my coffee with a spoon they have used in a sugared cup. I still can.
I definitely can do that – very annoying it is, too
Important point: Yes, UPF is playing an important part in causing obesity and a wide range of metabolic illnesses including blood lipid disorders, hypertension, propensity for thrombus formation, low-grade chronic inflammation, cardiomyopathy, type-2 diabetes and – of course – abdominal obesity, but it also plays a major role in other health factors which need to be understood: a), the plague of endocrine disorders across the last 50 years, and b), extensive microbiome dysfunction.
Your economic stethoscope will cause many people to want to become better-informed about their own and their loved ones’ health, and therefore (I’d say) accurate and fuller pathological understanding has a double benefit:
i – it improves peoples’ health awareness and ii – it makes your economic arguments stronger, more powerful and significantly more relevant.
Win/win.
It is also a major contributor to many cancers
So with upf, has anyone yet discovered whether the proportion of “non-food” additives in what we eat (chemical emulsifiers, stabilisers, thickeners etc) impacts on our health?
I struggle with the fact that a loaf of bread is probably 98% “food”, but the 2% of refined chemical additives means it is 100% classed as upf.
You do realise that the vast majority of bread is made of flour from which all nutritional value has been removed, don’t you?
I suppose that reinforces the point about definitions. White bread is deemed stripped of the nutrition compared to brown, and bleached flour deemed stripped of the nutrients of unbleached. Yet chemical analysis shows they still have the same fat, carbs and protein, with slightly less vit e in the latter. Or has the processing rendered the “nutrients” inaccessible? How is the consumer to know?
You really need to inform yourself before posting pure nonsense here
You won’t get another go
This nanny state thing needs to be challenged with food issues certainly, and others. For decades now whenever a government report/body/enquiry recommends a policy to improve health or safety or working/living conditions Tufton Street and their media allies scream ‘nanny state’ and the proposal is dropped. Sometimes we need nanny make us do the right thing.
Better a nanny state highlighting harms which we can choose to ignore, than a ninny neoliberal foisting ultraprocessed foods on us which they claim to be healthy.
We should stop obsessing about the dangers of excessive control by a ‘nanny state’, and instead acknowledge the extent to which we are manipulated every day by the ‘evil-nanny capitalists’.
Boparan Holdings.
Given what happened I am amazed that there was never a campaign to boycott it.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/mar/07/millionaires-son-jailed-for-causing-girls-death-with-dangerous-driving
My wife has just completed 13 sessions of a “pre-diabetic” course, and we had fun with the survey at the end, as there was a free-form text box allowing her to opine about UPF and poverty/austerity.
But the course was mostly about individual responsibility, whereas the big driver in real life is about money – the food companies making money, and austerity depriving us of it.
These courses are being pushed hard right now.
My wife’s glucose metabolism relates to years of (necessary) steroids to treat life-threatening autoimmune diseases, and the damaging effect that had on joints and mobility. We avoid UPF like the plague, but exercise – ie burning calories – is almost impossible. We may try wanging UPF ready-meals across the supermarket carpark to burn calories.
Unfortunately we seem to be, increasingly, in an era of government decisions based purely on the interests of lobbyists and those they represent. It cuts across all departments of government.
I can’t help feeling that there is a connection with the rise in obesity and the decline in the teaching of cooking and nutrition (home economics) in our secondary schools. Young people were taught that they could make meals themselves using simple ingredients. They were empowered, if you like. Now my grandchildren think that a meal has to be bought from the chiller cabinet or from a takeaway.
@ Rob Sharrock
Some thoughts on cooking at home…
1. Central gov’t is actively squeezing such things out of the curriculum in favour of STEM subjects. And some families can’t afford the ingredients for the classes, nor can the schools.
2. For many v stressed families doing multiple low paid part-time jobs with lengthy (unpaid) inter-job commutes on poor public transport, there is little time for either careful bargain-conscious shopping or home cooking, also cooking consumes expensive energy, hostels & emergency accommodation have v poor facilities or even restrictive rules about cooking, other than micro-waving UPF poison.
3. My years of foodbank work (including promoting cookery courses) showed me that in deprived communities, families on the edge, have a strong desire to shop, cook and eat healthily. They are neither stupid, lazy or feckless. Watching some these young mums pick their way round a food club, as they prepare to go home with one of the provided recipe sheets is a profoundly humbling experience. They literally know their onions (and their avocados, bang goes another stereotype, as I listened to one young working class mum explain to me about what sort of fat was in an avocado and how she prepared them). They are energetic, inventive and keen to learn, they HAVE to be, to survive in our hostile evironment, but even then, our systems tread on their heads and push them under, as poverty-porn TV producers distort “reality” to get reality TV rating$. What they often lack is the opportunity to cook and eat healthily, due to a whole host of issues (lack of shops, poor public transport to the good value outlets, fuel costs for cooking, time constraints, but mostly, a rapacious immoral corporate greedy food industry facilitated by ill informed, and corrupted government. I’m basing my strong response on my experience at the sharp end of working in food poverty over several years with hundreds of families.
Much to agree with
But important to also note that the Lords report evidences that the reluctance to cook is not a class / income issue. It crosses all boundaries.
I agree with this point by Rob and the importance of educating about food.
A notable UNESCO report “Education for
Sustainable Development Goals” (2017, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, https://www.unesco.de/sites/default/files/2018-08/unesco_education_for_sustainable_development_goals.pdf) suggests important Learning Objectives to meet UN SDG 2 (Zero Hunger – https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/hunger/),
SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/health/) and SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities, https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/cities/) which all refer to the importance of educating about food.
Among the report’s many suggested topics to achieve the ambitious learning outcomes there are very many that consider issues of sustainable food and of the relationship between food and health (‘from farm to fork’) including preparing food.
See 1.2.2a-b (p.15); 1.2.3a-b (p.17); and 1.2.11a-b (p.33)
Thanks
We teach our pupils to cook. But if a packet of chicken nuggets boasts low fat, real chicken pieces, and ready in 15 minutes, it is difficult to refuse.
Little mention of E-numbers, genetically modified ingredients, and how the chicken were farmed.
Am I being cynical or realistic in thinking this is likely to be quietly buried with a vague promise to do something in the indeterminate future? It leads me to think about the bigger picture and I’m with Sean (above) about the lobbying that the report also identifies but I sense a desperation that governments of all hues have shown in the last few decades to promote any business that makes money regardless of whether the promotion of the product is beneficial or not (usually not) to the population in general. The over-reliance on the financial sector to drive GDP at the cost of both a tradition of manufacturing and a thriving small business sector haunts the British (and other) economies and the absence of a food strategy reflects the absence of virtually ANY strategy that doesn’t involve large scale investment from abroad.
There were a couple of indications from the Labour Party conference that progress might be made, as reported by The Food Foundation:
“The Minister for Prevention and Public Health, Andrew Gwynne… acknowledged that although the regulations on junk food marketing and changes to the National Planning Policy Framework were a good start in breaking the junk food cycle, more would need to be done if we are to improve the dietary health of the nation….”
[Also]
“Food Security Minister, Daniel Zeichner, hinted at possible progress on key issues for the food system. Although he refused to be drawn on specifics, he told an audience at a fringe event jointly hosted by the National Trust and the Socialist Environmental and Resources Association (SERA), that the government is looking again at the National Food Strategy.”
(See https://foodfoundation.org.uk/news/what-did-we-learn-party-conference-season)
The government response to the Food, Diet and Obesity Committee (Lords Select Committee) is due on 6th January. This may be telling as to the direction the government will take.
https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/698/food-diet-and-obesity-committee/
There is almost zero chance of the Lords and Richards programme being implemented – as many her have said about tobacco etc.
Its lobbying – yes, but more than that – Labour and Tories bought and sold by monied private interests. Until private money in politics is outlawed – nothing will change.
I’m more hopeful because even government, captured by lobbyists as it is, looks at the diabetes/obesity catastrophe, and gets scared at the economic implications, for healthcare, social care, & Labour shortages. They know that Wes’s fat-pills won’t solve this enormous problem.
I’m disinclined to trust Labour, but nevertheless, I think this just might get to them.