The National Obesity Strategy was launched on 27 July to tackle one of the largest long-term health challenges in the UK: nearly two-thirds of adults are above a healthy weight as are one in three children leaving primary school.
The Government’s main measures area:
- A campaign to get overweight people to reduce their weight using apps;
- Improve the NHS weight management service;
- Consult on the current traffic light labelling for healthy food choices;
- Legislate for calorie labels for larger food retailers;
- Consult on calorie labelling for alcohol;
- Legislate to end the promotion of food with high fats, sugars and salts;
- Limit the advertising of foods with high fats, sugars and salts.
This is a great step in the right direction but perhaps underplays – even for the Lincoln Food Partnership – the importance of healthy exercise.
As short term proposals these inevitably have an emphasis symptoms rather than causes – perhaps we should turn our attention to education about food for longer term solutions that tackle the causes of obesity.
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