Obesity: Food and Diet

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) for securing this debate.

Some 21.7% of five-year-old children starting school in Bolton are classified as overweight or obese, and the figure rises to 37.8% by the time they leave primary school. Across the country, children in the poorest areas are twice as likely to be living with obesity as those in the richest areas. When we walk around our constituencies, we can see why. We all know that the poorest parts of the areas we represent are invariably overwhelmed with fast food outlets selling cheap junk food with minimal nutritional value. They are plastered with adverts for food that harms people’s health. They are often devoid of safe green spaces for exercise and of routes to travel safely to work. That is the impact of the places where people live.

When we add the price and convenience of unhealthy food and the relentless and predatory marketing that pressures people into eating more junk food, we can see why the UK now has the third highest obesity rate in Europe. The burden of this preventable illness is falling on our poorest citizens. It cannot continue. As the Minister will be aware, it is in the poorest communities that we see the worst cases of heart attacks, strokes, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease and other preventable diseases.

There will always be those who claim that people just need to make better choices. I would ask them, “Are our poorest citizens making choices that are twice as bad? Are they less informed? Do they care less about their children’s health?” Of course not. They face structural barriers that richer people do not. We must break down the barriers. Many of the interventions recommended in the House of Lords report could make a real difference, including improving baby food, increasing access to Healthy Start vouchers and building on the success of the soft drinks industry levy. All those interventions are worth making, but I will talk specifically about marketing.

It is very welcome that the Government have committed to deliver regulations on TV and online advertising in October this year and to end the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to children. I note that the latter policy was one of the most popular ideas in our manifesto, because people are worried about what their children are eating and drinking and they want the Government to do something about it. Both policies should have come into effect under the last Government, but unfortunately they did not. I urge Ministers not to make the mistake of listening to the same lobbying that took place last time and prevented the regulations from coming in. The 2018 regulations on TV and online advertising were modest and will not come into effect until the end of this year. That is not good enough. We must go further and faster to deliver the changes that we need to really turn the tide.

The House of Lords Food, Diet and Obesity Committee recommended going further and ending the advertising of foods high in fat, salt and sugar, on all formats, by the end of this Parliament. There is a clear blueprint for this. Tobacco advertising on TV was ended in the mid-1990s, but the Blair Government realised that more action was needed and introduced the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002. That legislation could almost be copied verbatim to protect children from predatory advertising or products that harm their health.

A particular focus should be on outdoor advertising. Four out of five billboard adverts in this country are in the poorest areas, and they are overwhelmingly for unhealthy products. It is overtly preying on our citizens, and we have the power to stop it. Eleven metro Mayors, including my own Mayor in Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, have stepped up to end such adverts on the outdoor spaces that they control, but they can only do so much. We need the Government to extend the regulations to cover privately held outdoor advertising, to ensure that children in my constituency and across the country are protected from these adverts.

Obesity and poor diet constitute the leading preventable health crisis of our time, one that is driving horrific and preventable harms to people’s health and is driving inequalities in health outcomes. Our poorest citizens are paying the price for these harmful foods with their health. The House of Lords inquiry echoes the recommendations of many other experts, including the Henry Dimbleby national food strategy, multiple leading think-tanks, such as the Health Foundation and the Institute for Public Policy Research, and the 60 leading health charities and medical royal colleges represented by the Obesity Health Alliance. All the experts agree on the action that needs to be taken. The Minister has a blueprint for what needs to be done. I implore him to implement it.