Tackling the obesity epidemic

The Institute for Government report on tackling obesity1 highlights the failure of successive UK governments to treat obesity effectively as a population health problem. Though important, the message that obesity is on the rise, is not new.2345

Deserving of more attention is the report’s observation of a government tendency to prioritise voluntary action by industry over mandatory approaches to regulation, raising a critical question: why do policy makers and others assume that the food and soft drinks industries have a legitimate role in designing solutions to the obesity epidemic?

This assumption has allowed both industries access to relevant government policy makers, at the expense of the large scale, systems level change required for progress. Access is supported by dominant industry narratives, including that industry led voluntary approaches to regulation centred on public-private partnership are effective. Yet overwhelming evidence shows that these approaches do not deliver the changes urgently needed to improve and protect public health.6

The …