Curbs on junk food ads No 1 priority in fighting childhood obesity, says study

Dramatic curbs on the advertising of junk food and drink to children is the policy measure that will be most effective in reducing the growing epidemic of childhood obesity, according to a group of more than 70 health experts.

The Food Foundation group calls for a ban on TV advertising of unhealthy food and drink up to the 9pm watershed and on sponsorship deals between companies that produce them and sports events like the Olympics. The recommendations come after complaints the government’s recently published childhood obesity strategy did not go far enough.

Anna Taylor, executive director of Food Foundation, a thinktank which led the year-long study, said: “While it is good to see concerted action by the government on reformulation of processed foods, we must, at the same time, take action to help our children eat fewer processed foods.

“Parents are fighting a losing battle if their children are being constantly bombarded with advertising which idealises fast food. Other countries have managed to control this. Why can’t we?”

Children are targeted in front of family TV programmes like The X-Factor and in their bedrooms and outside with friends via cyber games and Facebook ads on their smartphones, say experts.

Modern digital technology allows customised advertising, so that ads for snacks pop up at moments of heightened excitement for a child playing an online game, while McDonalds restaurants feature as important locations in Pokemon Go in Japan.

The 73 leading health and obesity experts from 41 organisations will say in a report to be launched in parliament next week that greater control of advertising and sponsorship by companies selling unhealthy food and drinks is the No 1 priority if the UK is to bring down the soaring obesity rate.

At present, advertising of foods described as high in fat, salt or sugar are banned in programmes predominately watched by children. But the experts will argue for greater restrictions, including a ban on all forms of non-broadcast advertising of these food and drinks to children.

The latest figures from the school measurement programme shows that one in five children in England is obese in year 6, the last year of primary school. One in three is either overweight or obese.

Experts are blaming high levels of advertising for soaring rates of childhood obesity. Photograph: McCrickard/REX Shutterstock

The experts have assessed the evidence for a large array of policies from around the world to develop England’s first food environment policy index, a measure of the effectiveness of the actions governments are taking. A similar index has already been published for other countries.

The next priority on the experts’ list is the nationwide implementation of the sugar tax by 2018. The third priority is an ongoing effort to reduce the sugar, fat and salt in processed food. Britain gets credit for the sugar tax, which is the number two policy on the experts’ list and will be brought in across the UK in 2018, and also for the work to reduce the sugar, fat and salt content of processed foods, which is third on their list.

But controls on advertising and sponsorship are even more urgently needed, say the experts, who include academics such as Profs Susan Jebb and Mike Rayner from the University of Oxford, Simon Capewell from the University of Liverpool, Corinna Hawkes and Geof Rayner from City, University of London, and Harry Rutter from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Dr Tim Lobstein of the World Obesity Federation, a member of the expert panel, said food companies and advertisers would put up strong resistance to the changes, adding: “We know they will use any means to weaken and undermine such measures.

“We need stronger regulation to prevent secret lobbying, private political funding and pro-business bias at the heart of government”.

The Obesity Health Alliance, a coalition of more than 30 organisations, said: “The food and drink industry wouldn’t spend billions of pounds each year on advertising and marketing if it didn’t work. We know that the pester power of younger children and the spending power of teenagers is influenced by what they see on TV, the internet and on their phone.

“Failing to tackle junk food advertising is a failure to acknowledge the very real effect the environment has on our children’s habits and ultimately, obesity rates.”

Public Health England, which was commissioned by the government to review the evidence to inform its obesity strategy, found that in 2014, the food industry spent £256m promoting “unhealthy” products sold in retail alone. One of its key recommendations was to “significantly reduce opportunities to market and advertise high sugar food and drink products to children and adults across all media including digital platforms and through sponsorship”.

But the government ignored PHE’s advice. The childhood obesity strategy, launched after much delay this summer, omitted any mention of advertising or sponsorship by the fast food industry, such as occurred in the UK Olympics with Coca Cola and McDonalds.

At a childhood obesity summit last week, Richard Dobbs, a senior partner at the management consultancy firm McKinsey’s, which produced a major report on the interventions that are likely to help reduce obesity in November 2014, said broadcasters had lobbied against advertising curbs on junk food to children being included in the government’s obesity strategy. “Media restrictions were going to cost ITV £500m,” he told the meeting. “It is not surprising ITV fought this quite hard.”

The World Health Organisation’s Europe office recently warned of the increasing sophistication of digital advertising and called on all countries to take action to block the promotion of unhealthy food and drinks to children. Its report described the use of smartphone games and social media platforms to access children.

“Taken together, the creative tactics and analytics … equate to a brand appointing a personal marketer to each child, locating and identifying those who are most susceptible to their messages, encouraging them to send marketing messages to their friends, and following them throughout the day, at moments of happiness, frustration, hunger and intent, delivering advertising with the maximum impact, and directing them to the nearest place to buy foods to ‘fix’ their current emotional state.”

The Committee of Advertising Practice launched a consultation on restrictions on the non-broadcasting advertising of food and drink to children, including online, in May and is expected to report next month.

How others are tackling obesity

Other rich countries have taken bold measures to face up to the obesity challenge.

Canadian province of Quebec took a tough line on advertising to children as early as 1980. All ads for food products as well as toys aimed at under-13s were banned from all types of media, including radio, television, the web, mobile phones, printed materials, signage and promotional material.

Experts think it paid off. French speaking families in Quebec were 19% less likely to eat fast food compared with those living in Ontario and spent 46% less on fast food, according to a household expenditure survey in 2007. Quebec has the lowest rates of childhood obesity in Canada.

France opted for a “soda tax” which, despite lobbying from industry,was imposed on drinks with added sugar and also with artificial sweeteners in January 2012. The tax of around 11 cents per 1.5 litres of drink, raises around €400m (£344m) a year. Soft drink sales dropped by 3.3% in 2012 and 3.4% in 2013. The French treasury is now considering whether to introduce a tax on fatty foods.

Sweden has taken action on school meals, with legislation in 2011 requiring them to be nutritious and free. The nutritional quality of the meals, calorie content and portion sizes are laid down for each age group. Water and milk are the only permitted drinks.

Schools and local authorities can evaluate the meals through a website called SkolmatSverige (School Food Sweden), where there are also questionnaires for the pupils and staff who eat the lunches.

Scotland is planning to introduce a good food nation bill, with a consultation in 2017. It promises to address procurement, waste, health, education and social justice. Groups are lobbying for farming and fishing to be included too.

Curbs on junk food ads No 1 priority in fighting childhood obesity, says study

Worker engagement need to be a priority for NHS trusts

It is difficult for organisations to ignore the positive impact that a properly-motivated workforce can have on the delivery of top quality healthcare, says Nicola Bullen. Photograph: John Robertson

Workers inside the healthcare system are creating essential choices primarily based on the reputations and brand names of person service suppliers and NHS trusts, study suggests.

The reputation of an NHS believe in as an employer is the very first consideration for one particular in 5 nurses when they are looking for a new role, with other key concerns such as a great function/life stability, great possibilities for job progression, an superb salary and investment in personnel.

Three in four nurses in the healthcare sector said they would actively stay away from operating for a trust seen as getting a poor track record in worker engagement, in accordance to the examine, Nursing a Healthful Popularity, which surveyed 1,600 nurses.

As the United kingdom economy recovers, employees who deferred a job move in the course of the recession are beginning to get restless. This trend is prevalent inside of the healthcare sector with the analysis exhibiting that only 14% of nurses surveyed are happy in their recent position, with 57% thinking about a new role and 21% actively seeking a modify. Healthcare organisations with minimal amounts of worker satisfaction are most likely to endure the most from resignations and sluggish recruitment, even though those with good reputations will appeal to and retain the best personnel.

The considerable nursing shortfall in the Uk has large implications for the two the NHS and the private healthcare sector. In the quick phrase, organisations are plugging the gap with bank and company staff but at a large price tag. With employees constituting the lion’s share of an organisation’s costs, there are evident pressures for value containment through successful staff engagement and retention. It is also hard for organisations to ignore the hugely positive effect that a stable, properly-motivated workforce can have the two in the consistent delivery of quality healthcare and in the avoidance of long term scandals.

Popularity will also be a critical factor in stopping a likely talent exodus to other countries and care sectors, with more than half of nurses in the survey saying they have regarded either functioning outside the Uk or moving to a distinct care profession, outside the NHS.

Another essential finding from Nursing a Healthy Reputation is that nurses are responding positively in direction of aligning employment behind the “6C” values of patient support – care, compassion, competence, communication, courage and dedication. With 71% of nurses supporting the values of the 6Cs, the findings suggest that the current concerns of employees shortages and disengaged workers can be conquer by imaginative leaders inside of the NHS proactively working with the 6Cs ideas, and that talent is ready to get behind initiatives that will flip close to the existing poor perception of public sector healthcare.

Employees make the best ambassadors for any organisation, and, in a culture in which the credibility of messages from prime executives is under important scrutiny, word-of-mouth and social media channels among NHS personnel are enjoying a essential position in choice producing for jobseekers. Constructive internal stakeholder engagement is as a result not only the appropriate point to do on its own merits, but a essential part of the management of external reputation.

The message for healthcare support companies and NHS trusts is a basic one. Reputational threat and powerful communications – and in specific positive worker engagement – now require to be leading of the agenda for any board that hopes to attract and retain the greatest employees.

Nicola Bullen is strategic lead for well being at TMP Worldwide Uk

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Worker engagement need to be a priority for NHS trusts

Prince Charles: very good food in hospitals must be a priority

He highlighted the just lately introduced Hospital Meals Exemplar CQUIN (Commissioning for Top quality and Innovation), which permits commissioners to reward hospital trusts for delivering higher top quality meals.

In a speech Charles mentioned it was important to “see food as a medication in itself”, in accordance to the Daily Mail.

He added: “You can envision just how delighted I was that final month NHS England launched an initiative CQUIN, which for the 1st time really encouraged commissioners to make hospital foods a clinical priority.”

He described Mike Duckett, former catering manager at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London, as an “inspiration”.

Mr Duckett reopened a amount of shutdown hospital kitchens and set them up with an natural chef and back links to neighborhood farmers in Kent who have been in a position to supply them with fresh seasonal make.

Charles mentioned this variety of enterprise developed a “virtuous circle” of sustainability, assisting the neighborhood economy and making certain better patient health.

Prince Charles: very good food in hospitals must be a priority