Child Obesity

Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I think we should hear from the Cross Benches, then my noble friend and then the Green Benches.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, what are the Government doing to challenge the industry about the types of substitutes it uses for sugar? When the big ones, such as aspartame, go into products such as Diet Coke, they create the illusion in your brain that you have had something sweet whereas your stomach is telling you that you have had nothing. They have now, on many scientific levels, been seen to make no difference to obesity. The same is true of low-fat yoghurts—in fact, they can contribute to obesity—so how are the Government tackling the industry to understand whether these low-fat products are actually helping with diets? I believe that they are not.