Food is the stuff of life. It brings us together socially. It is the focus of celebration. Food is the centre of family, the basis of how we thrive.
So the mythology of food goes.
However, the food we eat also impacts our health and well-being adversely. Unhealthy diets and consumption patterns drive increasing obesity levels across the UK population.
The government’s ambition to shift the dial from sickness to prevention in its health strategy is doomed without significant progress in both the nutrition and the quantity of foods and drinks that we consume.
Many marketing campaigns illustrate the challenges faced by government policies.
Companies who provide HFSS products can continue to advertise their brands, while restrictions apply to many of their products.
We celebrate summer and showcase aspirational chefs credentials with food which is inherently unhealthy. The recent Smash Cheeseburger on the front cover of a supermarket food magazine celebrated a product recipe which (for two people) contained 500g of beef, four cheese slices, two teaspoons of sea salt flakes, several bacon slices and sweet brioche burger buns.
Celebrating food that has poor nutrition (total calories, saturated fat, salt, sugar) is hardly a path to healthy consumption.
How can we do better?
Leadership from leading retailers such as Tesco and their charity partners, calling on mandatory reporting regulations from government on healthy foods is encouraging, and also necessary.
Key questions which remain include:
- How many other retail leaders and tier one supplier leaders are prepared to endorse this demand?
- Will the Food Strategy Delivery Board support this demand?
We know that we need to shift diets by making better choices easier, not by lecturing people.
We’re not short on solutions. We’re short on momentum.
Let’s build momentum, build support for better food and better reporting, and make rapid progress to the healthy population we all want to be part of.
Alan Hayes, strategic advisor at Future Strategy
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