Can the Government learn from other countries in the fight to trim our waistlines?

Sam Boyle, Consultant
23/09/2024

Food security has dominated headlines in recent months, driven by the establishment of new barriers to trading with the EU since Brexit and extreme weather affecting UK grown crops. Added to this, increased obesity among adults and children alike is leading to calls on the new Government to introduce preventative measures to relieve pressure on the NHS.

In response, the Government has recently announced they will ban junk food adverts being shown on TV before the 9pm watershed from October 2025, as well as preventing children from buying high-caffeine energy drinks. Healthy eating campaigners and health charities have also been lobbying for the Government to introduce a sugar and salt tax to help us all follow healthier diets, and live up to their pledge to create “the healthiest generation of children ever”.

As they look to deliver on this ambition, can ministers learn anything from other countries and the measures they have introduced to boost public health?

In a similar vein to banning junk food ads before the watershed in the UK, in Chile the government restricted junk food marketing to kids in 2016 in order to reduce the use of child-targeted packaging on unhealthy food products. New rules were also introduced which mandated use of front-of-package warning labels on food and drinks high in energy, sugar, salt and saturated fats. These foods can also not be offered in schools or promoted to children under 14 years-old. In the year that followed, the prevalence of being overweight and obese dropped, though since then the reforms haven’t made a lasting impact on reducing obesity.

These tough marketing restrictions have been rolled-out in other Latin American countries including Peru and Uruguay, and a similar law has been passed in Mexico.

Just last year, Colombia introduced a public health measure which imposed an initial 10% tax on ultra-processed foods and sugary drinks, with many calling it the most comprehensive measure to combat obesity. The tax will climb to 15% this year and up to 20% next year, with it likely taking a couple of years to know the impact it will have.

Closer to home, in the Netherlands focus is placed on providing healthy food in school and educating children about healthy eating. Milk and fruit are provided free at school, funded through the EU Common Agricultural Policy, and junk food is not served at lunchtime. Schools are strict about what children eat and regularly invite nutritionists into schools to help solidify the government’s argument around healthy eating. Dutch children are consistently ranked as some of the happiest in the world and in 2022, 48.7% of the population were deemed overweight or obese compared to 63.8% of people in the UK.

The World Health Organisation has recommended all nations implement a ‘health tax’ to help combat rising obesity and in particular childhood obesity. Given the short post-election political honeymoon Labour has enjoyed, any such policies introduced here will need to avoid exacerbating the squeeze many voters are still feeling as a result of the ‘cost of living crisis’, something which is no doubt also holding other countries back from being more ambitious on this agenda.

Yet the rising cost of healthcare and the UK’s precarious fiscal position may eventually force the Government’s hand. Following many years in which we’ve seen various UK governments pursue Australian-style immigration reform, copy elements of the Swedish schools system and promote a Canada-style Brexit deal, maybe Chile, Columbia or the Netherlands will soon enter the UK political lexicon as the inspiration for a fresh attempt to trim the nation’s waistlines.