In help of the launch of our new Local Government Position Statement, the Weight problems Well being Alliance (OHA), in collaboration with 88 main well being charities, marketing campaign teams, medical royal schools, native organisations and the hundreds of healthcare professionals, sufferers, and residents they characterize, has at this time issued an open letter to the Prime Minister. We’re calling for full supply of the proposed planning system reforms to empower native councils to cut back well being inequalities and make the locations they characterize more healthy.[i]
With native leaders throughout the nation, particularly these serving disadvantaged areas, eager to create more healthy communities however usually lack the required authority and sources, charities, organisations, and native well being champions have thereby supported OHA’s proposals to make actual enhancements to folks’s well being and lives by:[ii]
- Making more healthy locations a precedence in nationwide planning steering
- Proscribing out of doors promoting to permit solely more healthy food and drinks choices
- Shielding native authorities from highly effective business influences
- Restoring the Public Well being Grant with a £1.5 billion uplift
- Supporting the creation of Native Meals Partnerships
- Making certain the total, supportive, supply of the Nationwide Little one Measurement Programme
This comes as a brand new YouGov poll of two,273 UK adults revealed robust public help for these measures. Seventy p.c (70%) of respondents would help a ban on the promoting of unhealthy meals inside 400 meters of colleges and playgrounds, and over half (52%) help a ban on any new scorching meals takeaways from opening in the identical space.[iii]
Moreover, half of the nation believes that childhood weight problems charges will stay unchanged underneath the present authorities (50%), and virtually 1 / 4 (24%) count on them to extend. This presents a big problem for the federal government in convincing the general public that they will successfully result in significant change forour youngest residents.
Whereas the federal government has just lately initiated a session on how the planning system can higher tackle well being inequalities and weight problems, notably regarding scorching meals takeaways close to colleges, campaigners are urging the federal government to implement these modifications absolutely. [iv] This can be a essential first step in empowering native communities to create more healthy environments.
Motion to stop diet-related unwell well being is essential to fulfilling the federal government’s missions to spice up financial development and construct a future-ready NHS.
That is notably vital provided that weight problems at the moment prices the NHS over £6.5 billion yearly, with broader financial prices reaching £98 billion. Additionally it is a significant contributor to the variety of folks leaving the workforce attributable to sickness.
Katharine Jenner, Director of the Weight problems Well being Alliance, feedback;
“Each youngster deserves entry to reasonably priced, handy, and nutritious meals. Nevertheless, excessive streets are flooded with unhealthy food and drinks choices, aggressively marketed in ways in which restrict free alternative. Since 2016, the variety of youngsters and younger adults identified with sort 2 diabetes has elevated by almost 40%, fueled by rising ranges of extra weight. Efficiently implementing the federal government’s Little one Well being Motion Plan can be a big achievement, with the important first step of giving native locations the ability to create more healthy, lively native communities for our youngsters.”
Darrell Gale, spokesperson for Wholesome Locations for the Affiliation of Administrators of Public Well being provides:
“Consumption of unhealthy food and drinks will not be a results of private alternative. The truth is that folks don’t have the liberty to decide on. As an alternative, they’re compelled by circumstances to purchase cheaper, much less wholesome alternate options, bombarded by promoting and advertising, and are unable to entry lively transport, open areas, or reasonably priced leisure choices. Solely by creating more healthy environments, the place folks have higher entry to the issues we have to dwell more healthy lives for longer, can we hope to deal with this inequity.”
Ends
Notes to editors
For additional press info or interviews, contact David Clarke at Rock PR
M: 07773 225516
[i] OHA Open Letter to the Prime Minister. 12.09.24
[ii] OHA Local Government Position Statement 12.09.24
[iii] YouGov / Obesity Health Alliance Survey Results , Pattern Dimension: 2273 UK Adults, Fieldwork: fifteenth – sixteenth August 2024
[iv] The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Native Authorities. Open session. Proposed reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework and other changes to the planning system
