Children: Obesity

Baroness Trumpington Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Trumpington]

My Lords, perhaps I may ask the Minister two questions. First, does he not agree that cheap food has become far more delicious than it was in the youth of most people in this Chamber? Secondly, children like to copy their heroes. Could not the media be persuaded to make greater use of physical heroes, such as footballers, tennis players or any kind of sporting hero, in order to promote less obesity?

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend makes a very good point about role models. To a certain extent, that has been tried and tested in the past with some success. As regards food and its taste, I would say each to their own, but she is right that we are encouraged in all sorts of subtle ways to eat more than we used to in years gone by. The responsibility deal calorie reduction pledge specifically enables businesses to contribute to our challenge to the nation in this area, which we issued as part of the call to action on obesity in 2011, to reduce total calorie consumption by 5 billion calories a day.