Obesity

(asked on 27th February 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of his policies on tackling obesity.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 5th March 2020

The Department supports the aims of world obesity day and is delivering a world-leading childhood obesity plan to reduce the prevalence of children who are obese. This has been recognised in Unicef’s ‘State of the World's Children’ report, published in October 2019, as ‘paving the way to ensure that all children grow up in a healthy food environment’. The Unicef report is available at the following link:

www.unicef.org/media/61356/file/SOWC-2019.pdf

We have launched a review into weight management services to understand how we can empower people living with obesity to achieve and maintain a healthier weight and we are working with NHS England to develop approaches to improve the quality of brief advice given by health and care professionals on weight management in general practice.

Through the three chapters of ‘Childhood obesity: a plan for action’ we are bringing forward a wide range of measures to reduce the prevalence of children who are obese. We have seen important successes including the average sugar content of drinks subject to the soft drinks industry levy decreasing by 28.8% between 2015 and 2018, and significant investment being made in schools to promote physical activity and healthy eating.

Reticulating Splines