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Combating Obesity

I beg to move,"That this House has considered the matter of combating obesity." It was almost a year ago today that the foresight programme report served notice of the grave threat posed to health by obesity. That group of eminent scientists claimed that modern society had created an obesogenic environment, which, without radical action, would result in nine in 10 adults and two thirds of all children being overweight or obese by 2050. The prognosis is truly frightening. Within a generation, three in five cases of type 2 diabetes and a fifth of all heart disease cases will be caused by obesity, and for the first time in centuries we face the terrible spectre of some children living shorter lives than their parents unless we reverse current trends. Yet the prescription, on paper at least, is simple: we all need to eat a little less and exercise a little more; we will then, hopefully, live a little longer. In practice, though, the challenge is rather more difficult. People live hectic lives. Time is at a premium, and so often, exercise or healthy food can be edged out by family commitments, work, a lack of good leisure facilities or a lack of shops that sell fresh food in the area. Fundamentally, making the big lifestyle changes is a question of access, opportunity and will. Those are the issues that we must address emphatically if we want to turn the tide on obesity. The Government have already taken important steps: for example, we have allocated £65 million to NHS primary care trusts to help them to identify, monitor and support obese patients. We have updated the child health promotion programme and expanded the new family nurse partnership programme. In partnership with the children’s plan introduced by the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, that will help to support the health and well-being of children and young people. Working with Ofcom, we have placed new restrictions on the broadcast advertising of unhealthy foods to children, and are continuing to work with industry on the healthy food code to reduce salt and fat content in manufactured foods. But—and it is a big but—changing behaviour is not something that we can do from the Department of Health, Whitehall or this House. We need a lifestyle revolution driven not from above but from below, and embracing all aspects of a person’s life. That means that everyone—schools, councils, local businesses, charities and community groups—must play a role in helping people to make space for the little things that can make a big difference.