Medical colleges and faculties unite to tackle obesity after “failure” of current strategies

The Academy of the Royal Medical Colleges has launched an inquiry into effective ways to reduce the prevalence of obesity. Supported by all 21 royal medical colleges and faculties, the academy says that the three month inquiry will be the springboard for campaigning activity that will continue into next year.

In an article in the Observer newspaper Terence Stephenson, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and chairman of the academy’s steering group, criticised the government’s “responsibility deals” with the food industry, saying that instead it must take on the major brands, which he likened to the tobacco companies of the last century in blocking moves to …