In October 2024, the House of Lords (HOL) Food, Diet and Obesity Committee published a report; Recipe for health: a plan to fix our broken food system. The report highlights an obesity crisis across the country and points to a number of key factors driving the reality that 64% of adults in England are now living above a healthy weight.^[1] As CancerWatch, we welcomed the publication of this report because of the clear and well-established link between obesity and 13 types of cancer, including cancers of the breast and bowel (two of the most common types of Cancer), pancreatic and oesophageal (two of the hardest types of Cancer to treat) and womb, kidney and liver.

The Government has now published their response, acknowledging the role that obesity plays in driving ill health, economic activity and premature mortality.^[2] With a Government Mission focused on reforming the NHS which includes reducing the burden on frontline services and developing a more preventative approach to healthcare, we’ve taken a look at their response and drawn out three commitments they’ve made to tackle obesity and drive improved public health.

The Government has agreed to produce an “ambitious food strategy” – one of the headline recommendations from the HOL report – which, alongside improving food security and environmental impact of food production, will seek to facilitate greater access and availability of healthier foods. While this strategy will be led by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, it will be developed in close collaboration with the Department for Health and Social Care and the Department for Education and the Food Standards Agency.
As part of its manifesto commitment to provide breakfast clubs to all primary school age children at state-funded schools, the Government is working with the FSA and local authorities to ensure a whole school approach to food to ensure quality and quantity standards for the food being provided to children in the school environment.
The Government will review the effectiveness of front-of-pack nutrition labelling to ensure consumers are well-informed about the nutritional benefits and health drawbacks of foods. They have also committed to evaluating the impact of calorie labelling implemented by large businesses across England, with a review due to be published by 2027.

As CancerWatch, along with our partners and friends from across sectors, we will continue to call on Government to ensure that these commitments lead to tangible action and impact in enabling a sea-change in access and affordability of healthier choices and action on poor diet across the country.

^[1] https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/health-survey-for-england

^[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/get-britain-working-white-paper