Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce increasing levels of obesity.

Public Health England (PHE) is working to address excess weight and obesity and support the Government’s aim to halve childhood obesity and reduce the gap in obesity rates between children from the most and least deprived areas by 2030, set out in the Childhood Obesity Plan (2016) and follow up Chapter 2 (2018).

PHE is doing this by working with the food industry on the reduction and reformulation programme to make everyday food and drinks healthier; enabling healthier weight environments, including supporting local authorities to take a place-based systems approach to obesity; supporting the local delivery of evidence-based, effective and sustainable weight management services; and supporting children and families through the use of digital technologies.

The Government recently published recovery strategy, ‘Our plan to rebuild: The UK Government’s COVID-19 recovery strategy’ (2020) reaffirms the Government’s commitment to the obesity agenda going forward. The Strategy can be viewed at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/884760/Our_plan_to_rebuild_The_UK_Government_s_COVID-19_recovery_strategy.pdf