‘Industry is largely to blame’ COMMENT

GRAHAM MACGREGOR THIS campaign is a good way of drawing attention to the fact that our children are eating far too much sugar.

But while adults and parents can take some responsibility, the food industry is largely to blame for all the unhealthy stuff high in sugar, salt and fat that is now killing off its customers.

I have a lot of sympathy for parents, particularly those on low incomes who may not have as much knowledge or choice. They are being bombarded with unhealthy choices.

The UK needs to decide: do we stop our children becoming obese or not? If so, we must take a more radical approach.

We fully support Change For Life’s campaign but what really needs to happen is much larger reductions of sugar in our food.

Getting people to take responsibility is important and we are not against that. But that is what we’ve been trying to do for 30 years. We are in a crisis now and need radical solutions.

Offers

The soft drink tax has been extremely successful but we want to see that raised rather like the tobacco tax. You can gradually increase it over time. And sugar thresholds should be reduced so they have to take out even more.

The other thing that is desperately needed is much more aggressive restrictions on marketing and advertising. You have all this pressure on the internet, on TV, on social media and in supermarkets with shelves at the eye level of children laden with sugary foods and eye-catching offers.

How do children know which foods could give them Type 2 diabetes? It’s scandalous – on a par with tactics that were once used to sell tobacco.

Targeting children like that is totally immoral and it’s costing lives. Why should children, a vulnerable group, be exposed to this without understanding the consequences?

We have banned tobacco advertising but unhealthy foods now cost far more lives than smoking every year.

Parents do need to be much better educated about healthy eating. But ultimately the Government must support them by introducing much tougher food industry regulations.