Health: Obesity

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises a very interesting point. It is certainly the case that those who consume ultra-processed food have around 50% of their calorific intake through that matter. Where there is not clarity is on whether the foods are unhealthy due to processing or to their nutritional content. On that, the jury is out. We need to establish that. That is the why the Government’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition has concluded that the association between UPFs and health is concerning. We need to get to the bottom of why that is.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister rightly talked about the importance of creating the right environment for people to eat healthily. Some noble Lords may have seen daytime television programmes that help families to eat healthily on a budget. The challenge has always been how we take these lessons into people’s homes. I recently spoke to BRITE Box, a local community charity which gives families the ingredients and a recipe card with instructions to help them to cook healthy meals together. This helps with not only budgeting but addressing obesity. Rather than a top-down approach from the Government, what steps are they and the NHS taking to work with existing projects such as BRITE Box to take a bottom-up, community-led approach to tackling obesity?