Protect UK childhood obesity plan from further weakening, urges health committee chair

The UK government’s fledgling childhood obesity plan is still vulnerable to lobbying from vested interests, and certain elements risk “slipping off” the agenda, the chair of the parliamentary Health Select Committee has warned.

Sarah Wollaston’s comments come as new figures from the national child measurement programme show that the prevalence of obesity among primary schoolchildren in England has risen over the past year and that the gap between children in the least and most deprived parts of the country has widened further.1

The serially delayed plan, which the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, had wanted to be a “game changing moment,”2 was heavily criticised by medical experts and campaigners when it was published in August, amid accusations that …