Parents have a role in tackling child obesity

Obesity is a serious matter. As the Commons select committee on health reports, nearly a third of children under 15 are clinically overweight and face a lifetime affected by the ailments and setbacks associated with being too fat. These include a greater propensity to contract Type 2 diabetes, heart problems, higher cancer risks, mobility issues, employment difficulties and depression.

The Government has already imposed a sugar tax on fizzy drinks and the MPS now want it to go much further. Their recommendations include making supermarkets remove sweets, chocolate and other unhealthy snacks from checkout areas; restricting junk-food price promotions; a limit on the number of fast-food outlets in a particular area; and a ban on sponsorship of sports clubs and youth tournaments by brands associated with unhealthy products. They are proposing, in other words, to treat unhealthy food pretty much like tobacco.

One glaring omission in the report is any serious analysis of the role of parents. Advice is offered to government, the media, retailers, the NHS and schools. Even advertisers are taken to task for using cartoon characters such as Tony the Tiger to sell sugary breakfast cereals. The MPS say these should be banned without saying how it would help. Childhood obesity is most pronounced among those from low-income backgrounds. Whereas in the past, the poor struggled to find enough food; now they are more likely than the better-off to be fat. Diets based around junk food and sugar-laden drinks are piling the pounds on a population that is far more sedentary than in the past.

Children today play less sport and do not walk much. Moreover, obese children will almost certainly have obese parents; and it is at the early stages of their lives that interventions are needed. Finding ways to reach this group who are otherwise not listening to the calls for a change in lifestyle is essential and cannot be ducked, even though the MPS’ report evinces the modern reluctance to ascribe any fault to personal behaviour.

The campaign to reduce smoking involved not only increasing the price of tobacco and banning its promotion, but disapproving of those who indulged – not least if they encouraged their offspring to smoke. Why should it be any different with junk food? A strategy that does not target the primary cause of the problem is doomed to fail.