Cancer campaigners want junk food deals crackdown

Store promotions lure shoppers into overeating, says charity

MINISTERS are being urged to develop a new obesity strategy to curb the “barrage” of supermarket deals on junk food amid fears that excessive calorie consumption is exacerbating an increase in cancer cases in Scotland.

Campaigners at the charity Cancer Research UK repeated their plea for a crackdown on promotions which, they believe, lure shoppers into overeating as the latest figures revealed that the number of people being diagnosed cancer is on the rise.

Although the ageing population is the key driver behind the surge, with three-quarters of all total cancer cases diagnosed in patients over 60, being obese or overweight is also one of the major known risk factors for non-smokers.

In 2015, 31,467 people in Scotland were diagnosed with some form of cancer, according to the latest data from the Scottish Government’s health statistics body, ISD Scotland. That compares with 27,494 a decade before, an with increase of more than 14 per cent.

Gregor McNie, Cancer Research UK’s senior public affairs manager in Scotland, said: “It is worrying that the number of people in Scotland being diagnosed with cancer is increasing, especially as much more can be done to stem the rising tide. More than four in 10 cancers in the UK are preventable.

“For non-smokers, being overweight and obese are the biggest preventable causes and are linked to 13 types of cancer, including some of those most common in Scotland, such as breast, bowel and kidney.

“This is why the Scottish Government can and must do more by introducing a new obesity strategy which includes tackling the barrage of supermarket multibuy offers on junk food.”

The charity previously called for regulation to clamp down on shops offering multi-buy deals on products high in fat, sugar and salt. Multi-buy deals on alcohol were banned in 2011 but price promotions on items such as crisps, confectionary and sugary soft drinks remain more widespread in Britain than anywhere else in Europe.

Supermarkets insist the deals offer consumers value for money.

The latest statistics show that kidney cancer has seen the biggest increase in the past 10 years – up 25 per cent overall. Obesity and smoking are known risk factors, although advances in medical imaging may also have led to an increase in incidental diagnosis of some tumours.

Lung cancer remains the most common type of the disease in Scotland, although cases have fallen 15.5 per cent among men over the last ten years compared with a 6.8 per cent increase in female diagnoses. This trend largely reflects historical trends in smoking.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men, although incidence is down 0.5 per cent compared with 2005, while breast cancer remains the most common type among women, with cases up nearly six per cent in a decade.

Health Secretary Shona Robison said: “We are improving our ability to detect cancer and to treat it successfully but we can always do more.”