Government's "dereliction of duty" over obesity crisis

by Charlotte Morgan | 31 August 2012 | 18 comments

A professor and former public health adviser has accused former Health Secretary Andrew Lansley of failing in his duty to help tackle Britain's obesity epidemic.

Government's "dereliction of duty" over obesity crisis

lansley In an interview with the Independent newspaper, Professor Simon Capewell, who served on the Public Health Commission, has accused ex-Health Secretary Andrew Lansley (who was demoted to Leader of the House this week) of being too close to the food industry and pushing Britain backwards in the fight against obesity.

In March 2011, the government declared its plan to “work together” with food manufacturers to help improve the nation’s health.

Under the ‘Responsibility Deal’ restaurants would label their menu with calorie counts and manufacturers would reduce the amount of saturated fat, salt and sugar in their processed foods. The scheme is a voluntary one (no-one has to take part by law) and was supported by research into obesity, which Professor Capewell helped conduct.

But earlier this year, Which? revealed that only a few of the top 10 restaurants and pub groups had agreed to provide calorie information on menus, with brands such as Pizza Express, Café Rouge and Strada refusing to sign up.

It's a situation I think that's made even more urgent when you consider that a quarter of women and just over a fifth of men in the UK are classed as obese. If we carry on going as we are, experts predict half of our children will be overweight or obese by 2020.

"Gross dereliction of duty"

chocolate Professor Capewell, who is a member of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges committee on obesity, said he had lost faith in Mr Lansley’s ability to manage the scheme.

Quoted in The Independent, Professor Capewell said: "Andrew Lansley, in my opinion, is guilty of a gross dereliction of duty in relation to public health. He has actually moved Britain back in terms of public health from where we were before he was elected. He has officiated over a responsibility deal which is a pantomime – and has been a huge public relations coup for the industry."

He said that the concept of a government working together with food manufacturers presents too big a conflict of interest to ever work. "It is breathtaking that when deciding on public health policy in relation to food you should be sitting around the table with the very people who make large amounts of money from selling this stuff,” he said. He likened it to "putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank".

One chocolate manufacturer, for example, agreed to no longer sell 500g packs of chocolate – but instead sells a double pack of two 250g bars. “These sort of voluntary agreements are not worth the paper they are written on," said Professor Capewell.

The Scandinavian dream

Some European countries have not bothered with voluntary schemes, and have instead used the law to tackle obesity. For example, Denmark became the first country in the world to ban trans-fatty acids from food products in 2003, and followed it up with a law taxing saturated fats in 2011. Plus both Sweden and Norway have banned adverts for junk food aimed at children under 12.

However, the Independent quoted sources close to Mr Lansley who insisted that real progress had been made as a result of the voluntary agreement, and that it was far more effective to work with the food industry than against it.

BBC Radio 4 also got involved with the debate this week, and you can listen to the You and Yours episode on the issue here.

Do you think the government should be doing more to tackle the obesity epidemic? Or do you think it’s in the hands of the consumer? Share your thoughts in the Comments box below.

Andrew Lansley image courtesy of The Department of Health.

You might also like

Why BMI isn't an accurate way of measuring health

The foods that give you cancer (if you believe the papers)

Is it your fault Britain is obese?

Comments

View all 18 comments

by davidinnotts | on 07 September 2012

Lots of good points so far! Thank you especially Fitness4London, Klawman and vixen71.

The real problem for the Health Secretary is that he/she will always be in an impossible bind - because politicians in power have to please each conflicting lobby and the great washed masses to retain their position.

Industry (in this case, the manufactured food industry) is enormously powerful in three ways: they can afford hard lobbying and background influence (especially with the Tories, whose party funds come mainly from this source); they spend billions on advertising, which uses clever psychology (NLP mainly) to make us desire their high-margin products; and they can afford to use litigation or its threat as a weapon. All of these have been extensively deployed to such effect over the last century and a half that most people at least half believe that they have the right and need to gorge themselves on food that always has been known as harmful except as occasional treats.

Medically-based lobbies will always be at a disadvantage, because they aren't unified, witness many comments above, and are poorly funded. Clever lawyers and advertisers working for the food industry will always have the stronger voice, if only because most of us DO like a treat and are already half-inclined to indulge.

And the People! We're not so varied on this as some here have suggested.

Yes, the 'poor and ignorant' at the worst need guidance and maybe legislation to help them be healthier, but such people always have thought almost entirely of the moment, and have scant regard for consequences. 'Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow...' And the steadily encroaching obesity, arthritis, diabetes and bodily breakdown can be coped with moment by moment; the future's an unknown and it might all turn out right anyway! Such people, when young adults with families, never have taught their children good practice (witness many 19th century health reports). And any attempt to 'nanny' them into healthy choices will be met with resentment and maybe a redirected vote. At least today the schools can help in educating their children to better habits - and do.

More responsible parents will do better for their children, but it's always an uphill struggle, against the powerful forces of advertising, peer pressure and nag power. And come puberty, rebellion, too! In the end it's good example that's most powerful against these forces - which is why the children of vegetarians seem in surveys to stand out best against the pressure to 'junk-out'. Yet even 'healthy eating' parents and older responsible people eat in a way that our great-grandparents regarded as unhealthy, let alone the self-confessed somewhat-indulgent-rather-than-junk-addicts. We have become used to daily or even hourly treats on top of already over-processed meals and sugar-rich drinks. There's still hope for us, though. A hundred years ago, pretty-well the same junk and treat manufactured foods as today were freely available - look at ads in 100-year-old newspapers and on hoardings. Yet those with enough to eat were far healthier than we are today, with almost no cancer or heart disease and little arthritis. They made better choices.

In the end, I think, powerful medical and government pressure will be needed to continue the education campaign that began before the Crash. And the worst-offender junk food makers MUST be curbed, as is beginning in Scandinavia. But it's a tall order, especially in this recession. I don't hold out much hope.

We have to remember who will pay for all this long-life-but-in-poor-health which is creeping up on us. It's the Health Service - and we, the taxpayers, will have to fund it. It's maybe just being a little cynical to note that those who'll get worst, fastest don't generally pay tax anyway! I stand in the high street, watching them stagger, crutch and wheel themselves around, at leisure in working hours. And they're barely out of their teens and have obese kids in tow, learning how to do it badly for themselves! OK, this is a bit of a parody - but it's based on real life in any small town or suburban shopping street. Experts who know people are needed to make the education programme work, or we'll all be suffering from an unworkable Health Service in a couple of decades, if not sooner. And no Health Secretary can put this into action by fiat - unless we want to sacrifice, say, a Secretary a year and a government every five to push through the unpopular necessities.