Children’s Health: Ultra-processed Foods

Earl of Effingham Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin of Kennington, for raising this key debate. I am sure that many noble Lords are familiar with the phrase “gut instinct”. The gut is our second brain. It uses the same chemicals and cells as our main brain. It helps us to digest, but also alerts us when something does not feel right. What we put into it is critical.

Noble Lords will also be familiar with the phrase “you are what you eat”. Eating nutritionally balanced and healthy food encourages good bacteria, which in turn affects the production of good chemicals. When production is optimal, our brain receives messages clearly and distinctly, and we experience a positive mental state. Food changes our mind and our mental health. We should actually say that food is medicine. There is a direct correlation between healthy diet and cognitive learning.

It is crystal clear that it is of the utmost importance for our children to have a healthy, balanced diet. It is therefore a concerning statistic that ultra-processed food accounts for almost two-thirds of what toddlers in the UK eat, and it becomes progressively worse the older they get.

While it is acknowledged that not all ultra-processed foods are harmful, there is agreement that they are typically high in saturated fat, salt and sugar. That is the type of food that can contribute to long-term illness, by changing the micro-composition in the gut, which can then lead to cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Research out early this week suggests that high-fructose corn syrup actually causes biological changes to the body that make it easier to put on weight and harder to lose it. Another worrying statistic shows that, in the past 47 years, average consumption by UK households of ready meals has increased by 549%, while consumption of certain fresh fruit and vegetables has decreased.

That goes some way to explaining the obesity levels in our children. Some 10% of four to five year-olds were obese in 2021; that increased to 23% of 10 to 11 year-olds in the same timeframe. We owe it to our children to give them the best start in life—but having a fit and healthy young population is essential to reducing pressure on the NHS. Obesity currently costs us £6 billion per year, set to rise to £10 billion by 2050. By trying to tackle the issue of our children and ultra-processed food consumption, we will in part tackle childhood obesity and further issues in later life.

Another concern is absenteeism from school due to illness. Almost one in 10 secondary school pupils missed school in the last week of September after sickness absence doubled in just two weeks. Those lost days over the course of a child’s education can have a material impact on their learning and development. If we are able to reduce in some way illness absence through healthier eating, that must be a positive.

If we are to protect the health of our children and prevent diet-related disease and complications, we should be reducing consumption of ultra-processed foods, and combining that with eating more lean meat, fruit, pulses and vegetables. What are the Government doing to educate children in healthy eating and cooking? Education must be key. If people really understood the harm that they are doing to themselves by eating foods that are high in saturated fat, sugar and salt, they might be able to adapt their buying patterns.