14 years of Tory cuts across all aspects of life have resulted in health destruction, and the cost to this country is vast. If our new government were to focus on health creation, it would ultimately result in wealth creation. Costs to the NHS would fall while economic activity and productivity would grow.
Disappointing
One of the best ways to ensure health creation is by supporting healthy eating. Of course, what we eat is not the answer to everything, but it does underpin our health, quite literally, from cradle to grave. So, it was disappointing to note that the king’s speech reflected Labour’s manifesto with no active links between food and health other than the intention to finally implement the ban on the advertising of high-fat salt and sugar foods (HFSS) to children (devised under the Tories and then kicked into the long grass by Liz Truss and Thérèse Coffey back in 2022), and to ban the sale of energy drinks to under-16s.
There was no reference to providing advice about ultra-processed foods (UPFs), or making healthier food choices. Nor was there any acknowledgement that UPFs are cheaper than real food, and that they contribute to serious health problems, particularly among poorer households. A recent report by the Food Foundation found that the health and wellbeing of children in the UK is in decline; five-year-old girls and boys are shorter now than the equivalent cohort were a decade ago, but they weigh a lot more, and healthy life expectancy at birth is falling.
Eating? Or smoking?
It is not clear how the restriction of HFSS advertising and the sale of caffeinated drinks alone will achieve the government’s stated ambition to create “the healthiest generation of children ever”.
Perhaps it’s about extending free breakfast clubs to all primary school children. But that would only work if the nutritional standards of that breakfast provision were significantly improved. No white bread. No margarine. No sugar laden cereal. Of course, breakfast clubs only operate in term time. So in holiday time those kids will still be going hungry. The government intends to create a child poverty taskforce, but that’s going to take some time to put together and then to come up with anything viable. And there does not appear to be any intention by the current government to lift the two-child benefit cap. So those kids who are currently hungry will almost certainly continue to be so.
Maybe that ambition is based on the only preventative public health measures which did find their way into the speech – an increase of the age of sale for tobacco for those born in 2009, or later, by a year each year, and the prevention of sale of vapes to children. The thing is, everyone eats, (hopefully) every day. Not everyone smokes; in fact, the number of people who smoke in the UK has been falling for decades. Although admittedly, vaping is a growing issue, largely among current smokers and ex-smokers. So which should take priority? Feeding the nation? Or dealing with the relatively small number of smokers?
It’s almost as if I know what I am talking about
It was interesting to hear the king say that food security is critical for national security – something that I have been saying since 24 June 2016. But there was little commitment to farming on Labour’s agenda, which let’s face it, is essential for food security. Nothing on policies or legislation around food production, no reference to an increased budget for agriculture and no mention of horticulture (for those who don’t know the difference, agriculture is about livestock and grain, horticulture is about fruit and vegetables – which we need a lot more of).
Imagine the benefits
The amazing Alexandra Rose Charity, which was started over a century ago, provides vouchers to families on low incomes to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. A couple of years ago they started a pilot project, Fruit & Veg on Prescription, providing vouchers, prescribed by public health teams, for fruit and veg to families in Tower Hamlets and Lambeth. In the two years since they started, 80% of their participating families are now eating five a day, there has been a huge improvement in health and wellbeing, and a 40% reduction in visits to GPs. Just from eating more fruit and veg.
If everyone in the UK ate a better diet the health of the nation would massively improve. And with better health, the cost to the NHS would significantly reduce. It’s not hard to see that a decent diet could help to fix the NHS.
A bit of a to-do list
To make that happen, the government will need to do a number of things.
It will need to invest in UK horticulture. As it currently stands, UK fruit and vegetable production is falling. According to the Soil Association, less than 2% of UK farmland is used to grow fruit and vegetables of any kind. In 2022, the UK imported over 80% of its supply of fruit and vegetables, but in 2023 production of vegetable fell by 4.9% and production of fruit fell by 12% so imports have probably increased to closer to 90%. Definitely not good for food security.
UK glasshouses, where a significant proportion of our salad crops are grown (cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and other salad leaves, and aubergines), are struggling to survive as labour shortages (yep, Brexit…) and increased costs impact their ability to function. A lot of them now stand empty.
It will need to stand up to the food industry. Most measures brought in by government to try to tackle poor diet over the last 14 years have been voluntary. Unsurprisingly, the food industry has made no significant reductions in fat, sugar, or salt, nor have levels of fibre and protein increased. And one of the few mandatory measures brought in, the soft drink levy (“the sugar tax”), introduced in 2018, can hardly be considered a success.
Although it apparently reduced obesity in 5,000 Year 6 girls, there are 10.3 million school children in the UK so 5,000 doesn’t even qualify as a drop in the ocean. Recent research is claiming that sugar intake fell by 11g a day after the tax was brought it. But that research ran from 2008-2019. A National Diet and Nutrition Survey undertaken in 2021 looking at diet during 2020 found that reduction in sugar consumption was miniscule, and was still far higher than the recommended 5% of total daily energy intake. There is no published data on sugar intake in the UK post 2020.
Update information and policies
It really needs to review the outdated and food industry-centric Eatwell Guide. A good place to start would be to exclude all industry input in that review. The current version is based on two things: outdated research that has been debunked for well over a decade, and a focus on profit for industry. It supports the big fat myth, focusing on low fat products and highly processed seed oils that provide less nutrition and are definitely not good for our health. It also puts a lot more emphasis on increasing intake of carbohydrates, a lot of which are processed. Most of us don’t need carbohydrates in anything like the levels recommended. Yes, our bodies are powered by glucose, but our biochemistry can make glucose out of fats and proteins. And given the level of obesity this country is currently suffering from, lower carbohydrate intake can only be a good thing.
The outdated 5-a-day policy needs to be reviewed because although everyone has heard of it, only 24% of adults, age 19-64, and 11 % of children, age 11-18 actually eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. Public health measures only work if the communication about them is clear, concise, consistent, and regularly repeated. The 5-a-day messaging has been a spectacular failure. It’s neither clear nor concise – potatoes don’t count, sweet potatoes do, portion sizes vary wildly depending on the food and it leaves out nuts and seeds, amazing nutrient powerhouses packed with protein, fibre, good fats, vitamins and minerals.
The UK adopted the 5-a-day message back in 2003. More than 20 years on it’s still not working which suggests it is more than time to re-evaluate the failure in government communication and start educating the public, from kindergarten through to secondary school, as well as adults, about food and health.
Collective thinking
Which then raises the next point. Food policy is currently split across multiple departments and then even farther across the devolved administrations. There needs to be some serious effort to be better at joined up thinking across government. Putting everything related to food into a single department would be a great place to start. It’s what the Food Standards Agency was supposed to do before it got cut to pieces by the Tories.
Creating a cross-government working group of all departments that have a finger in the food policy pie would be another positive move – areas like health, education, justice, transport, business, international trade, culture, media and sport, and the environment all need to work cooperatively and collaboratively. And that working group should be chaired by someone completely independent. Of both industry and government.
Food and food systems are central to improving health and wellbeing. Improved health and wellbeing would mean less strain on our health services and greater productivity in our workplaces; both things that this country desperately needs. Come on Labour, step up to the plate.
.jpg){kind=link}