Asked by: Baroness Goudie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to undertake a review into levels of childhood obesity and the role that the promotion of meals, snacks and drinks in early years settings can play in combatting this trend.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework (EYFS) sets the standards that all early years providers must meet, for the learning, development, and care of children from birth to five years old. The EYFS requires that where children are provided with meals, snacks, and drinks, they must be healthy, balanced, and nutritious. The EYFS also refers to example menus and guidance, which support parents, carers, and anyone working with children, to provide healthy food options. The Department for Education has also very recently published a range of tools and advice to support childminders, nursery leaders, and pre-school practitioners to improve the food offered in early years settings on the Help for early years providers platform.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to protect children from unhealthy food and drink marketing.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to working with businesses to ensure that we create the conditions for a healthier nation, and we are implementing an ambitious programme of measures to tackle childhood obesity. On 1 October 2022, the Government introduced legislation to restrict the location of foods high in fat, salt, or sugar in shops and online.
On 1 October 2025, the volume price promotion restrictions will come into force, restricting volume price promotions such as three for two offers on less healthy products. The Government will simultaneously introduce a United Kingdom-wide 9:00pm television watershed for products high in fat, salt, or sugar, and a restriction of paid-for advertising of these products online, also on 1 October 2025. We continue to work with industry on the Food Data Transparency Partnership, to co-develop voluntary reporting requirements for food business to demonstrate the healthiness of their sales.
The Government, through its focus on prevention, is committed to improving the oral health of our young children through the Smile for Life programme, so that they have good habits by the time they start primary school.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will take steps to stop child friendly packaging being used to advertise unhealthy food to children.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to working with businesses to ensure that we create the conditions for a healthier nation, and we are implementing an ambitious programme of measures to tackle childhood obesity. On 1 October 2022, the Government introduced legislation to restrict the location of foods high in fat, salt, or sugar in shops and online. These restrictions will have the single biggest impact on reducing children’s calorie consumption, and are expected to accrue health benefits of over £57 billion, and provide the National Health Service savings of over £4 billion, over the next 25 years.
On 1 October 2025, the volume price promotion restrictions will come into force, restricting volume price promotions such as three for two offers on less healthy products. The Government will simultaneously introduce a United Kingdom-wide 9:00pm television watershed for products high in fat, salt, or sugar, and a restriction of paid-for advertising of these products online, also on 1 October 2025. We continue to work with industry on the Food Data Transparency Partnership, to co-develop voluntary reporting requirements for food business to demonstrate the healthiness of their sales.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of trends in childhood obesity levels in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England in each of the last three years.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) collects data on children aged four to five years old, who would be in reception, and 10 to 11 years old, who would be in year 6. It provides detailed trend data on children’s weight status, including childhood obesity. While data is not available at a constituency level, it is available at a local authority, regional, and national level. The following table shows the obesity prevalence from the NCMP in Coventry, the West Midlands, and England, for 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23:
Area | Children aged four to five years old | Children aged 10 to 11 years old | ||||||
2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | |
Coventry | 11.7% | 15.2% | 10.4% | 9.8% | 25.3% | 30.2% | 26.7% | 25.6% |
West Midlands | 11.2% | 16% | 11.3% | 10.1% | 23.9% | 28.4% | 26.2% | 25.2% |
England | 9.9% | 14.4% | 10.1% | 9.2% | 21% | 25.5% | 23.4% | 22.7% |
Note: the data for 2019/20 was collected before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The data shows that the prevalence of obesity in children aged four to five years old has decreased since the increase seen in 2020/21, during the COVID-19 pandemic. For children aged 10 to 11 years old, prevalence has decreased, but it still remains higher in 2022/23 compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019/20, for the West Midlands and England. For Coventry, however, prevalence in 2022/23 is similar to pre-pandemic levels in 2019/20.
Asked by: Jo Gideon (Conservative - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to page 15 of the report by Bite Back entitled Fuel us don't fool us, published in 2024, what steps he is taking to prevent the food industry from targeting children; and whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of requiring manufacturers to remove (a) child-appealing features and (b) misleading health claims from unhealthy products.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to working with businesses to ensure we create the conditions for a healthier nation, and we are considering the recommendations from Bite Back’s report, Fuel Us, Don’t Fool Us. We are committed to addressing childhood obesity by implementing an ambitious programme of measures. These include restricting the location of foods high in fat, salt, or sugar in shops and online, which came into force on 1 October 2022. These restrictions will have the single biggest impact on reducing children’s calorie consumption and are expected to accrue health benefits of over £57 billion, and provide the National Health Service savings of over £4 billion over the next 25 years.
On 1 October 2025, the volume price promotion restrictions will come into force, restricting volume price promotions such as three for two offers on less healthy products. The Government will simultaneously introduce a United Kingdom wide 9:00pm television watershed for products high in fat, salt, or sugar, and a restriction of paid-for advertising of these products online. We continue to work with industry on the Food Data Transparency Partnership in co-developing voluntary reporting requirements for food businesses to demonstrate the healthiness of their sales.
Asked by: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will take steps with Cabinet colleagues to help tackle the potential impact of outdoor advertising on children’s (a) diet and (b) obesity levels.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to tackling childhood obesity. We are implementing landmark advertising restrictions from October 2025, which will protect children from the advertising of less healthy food and drink on television before the 9:00pm watershed, and paid-for advertising online. Evidence shows that these restrictions will have a direct impact on childhood obesity by targeting the media that children experience most.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of high rates of childhood obesity on future diabetes rates; and what assessment they have made of the impact that this will have on the NHS's future spend on diabetes.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has data from national diabetes audits showing the increasing numbers of young people being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes over the past five years. NHS England knows that 93.5% of children with Type 2 diabetes that are under the care of paediatric diabetes units are overweight or obese, with a body mass index above the 85th centile after correction for age and gender.
Core20PLUS5 – Children and Young People includes diabetes as a key clinical area and has two key areas of clinical focus, namely to increase access to real time continuous glucose monitoring and insulin pumps for children and young people in the most deprived quintiles and from ethnic minority backgrounds, and increase the proportion of children and young people with Type 2 diabetes receiving all the care processes recommended in guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.
Key diabetes health metrics, such as blood glucose levels, are poorest in young adults aged between 19 and 25 years old. To address this age-related health inequality, 15 ‘Transition and Young Adult’ pilots were established by the NHS Diabetes Programme in 2022-2025 to test models of care for young adults with diabetes and those transitioning from paediatric to adult diabetes services. The pilots will be evaluated to inform the evidence base on how to best deliver care and improve outcomes for this group.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to prevent children from developing diabetes at an early age.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is delivering an ambitious programme of work to help children and families maintain a healthier weight, which can prevent the onset of Type 2 diabetes.
The Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) is contributing to reductions in levels of childhood obesity by encouraging soft drinks producers to remove added sugar from products. Levels of sugar in SDIL products have reduced by 46%, removing over 46,000 tonnes of sugar.
The Department supports three million children through the Healthy Food Schemes, which encourage and contribute to a healthy and balanced diet.
Asked by: Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to tackle diet-related ill-health, including type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We remain committed to promoting a healthy diet for adults and children and are delivering an ambitious programme of work to create a healthier environment to help people make healthy food choices to improve health and to tackle diet related ill health. There are a range of measures in place to support improving diets, promoting physical activity and reducing obesity.
Regulations on out of home calorie labelling for food sold in large businesses, including restaurants, cafes and takeaways, came into force in April 2022. Restrictions on the placement of products high in fat, sugar or salt in key selling locations, came into force on 1 October 2022. We will be implementing restrictions on the sale of less healthy products by volume price such as ‘3 for 2’ and will introduce restrictions on the advertising of less healthy products before 9pm on TV and paid for less healthy product advertising online from 1 October 2025.
We are working with the food industry to make further progress on reformulation and ensure it is easier for the public to make healthier choices. The Food Data Transparency Partnership will help enable and encourage food companies to voluntarily demonstrate progress on the healthiness of their sales.
The Government continues to promote the Eatwell Guide principles through the NHS.UK website and government social marketing campaigns such as Better Health Healthier Families and Start for Life. We are also supporting more than three million children through the Healthy Foods Schemes and helping schools boost physical activity to help children maintain a healthy weight and good overall health through the Primary School PE and Sport Premium and the School Games Organiser Network.
We are continuing to support local authorities to improve the uptake of the NHS Health Check, England's cardiovascular disease prevention programme. The NHS Health Check helps to prevent a range of conditions including heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Each year the programme engages over 1 million people and prevents around 400 heart attacks or strokes.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she is taking steps to include information about the benefits of eating (a) wholemeal and (b) traditionally made bread in the school curriculum to promote healthier eating habits.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The government wants to support the health and well-being of everyone. The department recognises the importance of education in delivering this aim and is supporting schools in a number of ways to provide high-quality healthy eating education for their students.
The department does not specify how schools should teach the curriculum. It is a framework setting out the content of what the department expects schools to cover in each subject and trusts that teachers will develop the right approach for pupils in their particular school.
Cooking and nutrition are a discrete strand of the national curriculum for design and technology and is compulsory for key stages 1 to 3. The curriculum aims to teach children how to cook and how to apply the principles of healthy eating and nutrition. Students should become competent in a range of cooking techniques, as well as understanding the characteristics of a broad range of ingredients. The curriculum does not specify bread, but teachers may choose to include it among the foods they study.
A food preparation and nutrition GCSE, introduced in September 2016, requires pupils to understand and apply the principles of food science, nutrition and healthy eating when preparing and cooking food. Pupils learn about bread when studying food groups, where they could learn about the nutritional benefits of wholemeal. Similarly, they develop dough making skills in the preparation section of the course, allowing them to learn about traditional bread making.
The importance of healthy eating is also included in the science curriculum for both primary and secondary schools. Healthy eating is covered through topics relating to nutrition and digestion, which cover the content of a healthy diet and the impact of diet on how the body functions.
The statutory guidance for Relationships, Sex and Health Education includes content on the importance of daily exercise, good nutrition and the risks associated with an inactive lifestyle, including obesity.
Oak National Academy will be providing a fully resourced curriculum for key stage 1 to key stage 3 for food and nutrition. This will align with the national curriculum and also Oak’s guiding principles, which focus on the knowledge and skills specific to food and nutrition.
In addition, the standards for school food are set out in the requirements for school food regulations 2014, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/standards-for-school-food-in-england. These regulations are to ensure that schools provide children with healthy food and drink options, and to make sure that children get the energy and nutrition they need across the school day. The standards require bread, with no added fat or oil, to be available every day. The ‘School food standards practical guide’ encourages use of wholegrain varieties of starchy foods, as well as using at least half wholemeal or granary flour when making bread, puddings, cakes, biscuits, batters and sauces. The ‘School food standards practical guide’ can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-food-standards-resources-for-schools/school-food-standards-practical-guide#the-standards-for-school-lunch.