Junk food: Obesity strategy falling apart, Jamie Oliver says

Health campaigners say the government's obesity strategy is "falling apart", after it delayed bans on multi-buy deals for junk food and pre-watershed TV advertising.

Chef Jamie Oliver said banning adverts was vital to protecting child health.

Multi-buy deals made "people spend more on junk, and less on healthy food", the Children's Food Campaign said.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said the planned ban on "buy one get one free" (Bogof) deals for food and drinks high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS) as well as free refills for soft drinks, would be put on hold for 12 months, until October 2023.

Plans to restrict TV advertising of junk foods before the 21:00 GMT watershed and paid-for online adverts are also being paused for a year and will not come into force until January 2024, the department added.

It added curbs on junk food placement in stores would still go ahead in October.

Writing on Twitter, Mr Oliver said plans to "restrict junk food advertising to kids are crucial for levelling up and popular with the public".

"This is a wasted opportunity and it starts to erode the whole obesity strategy - which at some point looked progressive and world leading written down, but is falling apart when it comes to acting on these policies," he said.

"Parents and kids don't want to hear any more excuses from the government. I really hope the Prime Minister @BorisJohnson proves me wrong and shows real leadership to give young people a healthier and fairer future."

The delay was also criticised as "unconservative" by former health minister Lord Bethall, who said it would be "extremely difficult" for the government to come back to the plans before the next election.

Lord Bethell, who previously served in Boris Johnson's government, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that while he was "pro-choice", illnesses caused by excessive junk food consumption were placing a burden on the NHS and the taxpayer.

Barbara Crowther, of the Children's Food Campaign, said ministers should be urgently curbing multi-buy offers instead of "delaying and dithering".

"Obesity is spiking and millions of families can't afford to put proper food on the table. Multi-buy offers make people spend more on junk, and less on healthy food," she said.

"This delay threatens the UK target to halve childhood obesity by 2030. Boris is playing politics with our children's health."

Prof Graham MacGregor, a cardiologist at Queen Mary University of London and chairman of Action on Sugar, said the delays contradicted the government's "levelling up" agenda.

"He has given in to his own MPs, and an aggressive food industry, who, ironically, were starting to comply with these new policies," he added.

Labour's shadow health minister Andrew Gwynne said: "Instead of cutting childhood obesity, preventing ill-health and easing pressure on the NHS, this chaotic government is performing another U-turn."

However, public health minister Maggie Throup insisted the government remained committed to tackling the issue of childhood obesity.

"Pausing restrictions on deals like 'buy one get one free' will allow us to understand its impact on consumers in light of an unprecedented global economic situation," she added.

About two thirds of adults in England were overweight or obese - with 28% of these considered to be obese - according to the NHS' most recent health survey in 2019.

When surveying children aged 10 to 11 years old, this rose to 25.5% obese and 15.4% overweight.

These figures showed large increases on the previous year, when 9.9% of children aged four to give and 21% of children aged 10-11 were obese.

The British Retail Consortium said the ban on multi-buy deals was unlikely to make much difference as retailers have "largely moved away" from them ins recent years.

Andrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the consortium, welcomed the delay on adverting rules as "one less distraction" for companies looking to focus on keeping prices down.

And industry body the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) argued that it "makes sense" to delay restrictions on multi-buy deals as families and manufacturers struggle with "high inflation".

Kate Halliwell, the FDF's chief scientific officer, also welcomed the delay to the advertising ban, saying it would give the industry time to prepare for a change in the law.

Laws requiring large restaurants, cafes and takeaways to list calories on their menus came into force last month.

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