Health chief urges government action on child obesity
Joe Lepper
Monday, May 18, 2015
The government must clamp down on the food advertising industry if it is to tackle the growing issue of child obesity, the head of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) has warned.
Professor Neena Modi, who became RCPCH president last month, said that although the Conservative manifesto pledges to address childhood obesity, she is concerned about “a lack of detail” on how it plans to do so.
Speaking exclusively to CYP Now, she said she wants to see the government adopt a strong approach regarding food industry regulation and the way it is advertised.
According to data presented to the European congress on obesity in Prague earlier this month, nearly one in four British children under the age of five are overweight or obese – the second-highest proportion of overweight children out of the 28 countries that provided data.
“I don’t think anyone can ignore that fact that obesity is a huge problem,” Modi said. “An obese child is going to be an obese adult, which is going to adversely impact on their own life chances, but also impact on the health of the nation.”
A survey commissioned by the RCPCH, which was published in March, found that nearly two-thirds of people want TV adverts for food high in fat, sugar and salt banned before the 9pm watershed.
Modi said tighter regulation of the food industry is necessary, due to the failure of self-regulation to effectively tackle the promotion of unhealthy food.
“What has happened before hasn’t worked,” she said. “If something doesn’t work, we need to move on and test the alternatives.”
In terms of the outlook for child health more generally, Modi said she is “surprised” by the lack of focus on the area in the Conservative Party’s manifesto, which is set to drive policy over the next five years.
“The lack of policies around child health in the manifesto did come as a surprise and one can only assume given the flurry of activity that it got forgotten about,” she said. “I hope it is something the Conservative government will pick up on again.”
Modi also said she is also concerned about a lack of clarity on whether the previous coalition government’s drive to increase numbers of health visitors will continue.
The coalition government pledged to boost health visitor numbers by 4,200 by April this year. It is widely expected to fall short of this target when official figures are released in the coming months.
Health union Unite is concerned that unless the recruitment drive is maintained, overall numbers of health visitors are in danger of falling back swiftly due to an ageing workforce and impending retirements.
“It leaves us in limbo if we do not know what the government will be doing,” Modi said. “It was during the coalition government that these strides were made and it would seem perverse if that was not continued.”
Other priorities in children’s health that Modi wants to see the Conservative government adopt include a stronger focus on multi-agency partnerships, particularly between hospital and community-based children’s health services provided by health visitors and GPs.
She confirmed that the RCPCH and Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGPs) is working on a joint strategy this year to improve training and co-ordination of care across hospital and community-based care.
She also wants to see improvements in data collection around children’s health to help further improve services.
“We do not have sufficient high-quality information about what is happening to the health of our children and I would really like to see a new emphasis on proper data collection on children’s health,” she added.
