National Child Obesity Strategy

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

We are making good progress in reformulation and in reducing sugar in drinks, which I have talked about, and in other foods. However, we have to look at the impact. We will look at that and if progress is not made—let us face it, obesity levels are unfortunately continuing to increase—clearly other actions will have to be taken.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, last year I chaired the Centre for Social Justice’s childhood obesity report. Until then, I had not appreciated how challenging and complicated it is, not least to keep representatives from the food industry and food campaigners in the same room. Amsterdam’s healthy weight programme has helped to reduce childhood obesity by 12% since its launch in 2012. Will my noble friend confirm that the Government are studying carefully how that reduction has been achieved?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

I thank my noble friend for that and applaud the work that she has done in this area. The Amsterdam effect seems significant and is an area we are looking at as we consider further actions in future.