Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
Main Page: Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Labour - Life peer)
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, my noble friend makes a very valid point. One in three children are now overweight or obese by the time they leave primary school. Early intervention is very important whether we are talking about cancer or about diabetes. At the moment, we are reviewing how to encourage children to be more active and are consulting on proposals to limit further the advertising of unhealthy food to children, to change the way unhealthy products are sold, to improve the information provided in restaurants and to ban the sale of energy drinks to children.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister recognise that some people suffer from forms of cancers that do not allow them to eat orally so they have to be intubated and the food with which they are intubated very often causes type 2 diabetes? Could more research not be done into forms of nourishment for people suffering from cancer who cannot eat orally?
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, the noble Baroness makes a very good point. Diabetes UK has reported that if you have diabetes you can be more at risk of developing certain types of cancer, while some cancer treatments can affect diabetes and make it harder to control. In partnership with Macmillan, Diabetes UK has produced an information booklet for anyone who has been diagnosed with cancer and is living with diabetes. I am glad the noble Baroness raised this point and I will ensure that my noble friend the Minister is aware of it.