Obesity: Food and Diet

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Opher]

Absolutely. One of the main pitfalls we must avoid is that there is no point in making cheap food more expensive. That will make people poorer. We need to be much more creative than that.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate and for allowing me to intervene. I commend the Government’s new policy of free breakfast clubs for all primary school children, but does he agree that we should not miss the opportunity to ensure that that meal is wholesome and nutritious so that all our kids can get off to the best possible start?

[Dr Opher]

Yes, I could not agree more. As I said in the debate on education, we should be careful about the food industry sponsoring school breakfasts. As I pointed out, there is no such thing as a free breakfast. Companies often make unhealthy and addictive food and get young people addicted to it, so we must be cautious.

I wanted a recipe to solve this crisis and what I am suggesting comes from evidence from Nesta and the House of Lords Select Committee. It should be mandatory that all stores report on the food healthiness of their sales. We need a fully independent Food Standards Agency. We should have a ban on advertising junk food, as has already been proposed, and there should be a watershed for children—that is incredibly important. As is planned in Scotland and Wales, there should be a ban on price promotions, particularly for unhealthy foods, ultra-processed foods and takeaways. We also need to put a lot more resource into breastfeeding and diet in pregnancies—remember the carrots—and we must regulate formula feeds.

One measure, which has worked with the drinks industry in reducing sugar, is a reformulation tax on foods that are high in sugar and salt. Supermarkets and food companies would reformulate their foods to avoid the tax, thereby making them healthier. My hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) mentioned breakfast clubs. There is a lot of evidence that free school meals and breakfast clubs reduce obesity. Where free school meals have been introduced in London, childhood obesity has been reduced by 11%. That is because the food is healthy and a healthy hot meal is really important, rather than high-calorie snacks, which are what a lot of packed lunches consist of. If we cannot have free school meals, because of financial problems, we should have auto-enrolment so that children who should be on free school meals actually get enrolled. That would benefit schools, too.

We must have mandatory front-of-packet labelling. I have never met a parent who does not want to buy healthy food for their children. The trouble is that they pick up a packet of cereal and it says, “High in iron and filled with vitamins,” and think it must be healthy. Nothing could be further from the truth, so we must have accurate labelling. Healthy school foods should be sourced locally. In Stroud, I have been working closely with local primary schools to encourage them to eat fresh, locally grown, highly nutritious food. I think the Government’s target is to procure at least 50% of food in schools from local sources.

Then there is the famous hospital food. I was recently in hospital with a relative, and I can tell the House that hospital food is not healthy. We had white-bread sandwiches and some crisps—that was our healthy snack. We must introduce healthy foods in hospitals.

Takeaways are another big barrier to healthy eating—there was a massive explosion in their use during the covid pandemic—and we need to include them in any regulation. As I have said, in Scotland and Wales a ban on takeaway price promotions has been proposed. On average, those in deprived areas order more takeaways than those in non-deprived areas. We certainly must not let takeaway outlets open near schools—that is a planning must.

I would also caution against the treatment of the obesity crisis with injections of drugs such as Ozempic, which could well turn out to be dangerous.