The UK has some of the highest levels of overweight and obesity people in Europe, with more than 64% of adults in England now living with excess weight and one in seven children obese.[i] This has grave implications for public health.
Excess body fat increases cancer risk because it can drive inflammation and raise hormone levels that stimulate cells to divide more often.[ii] Overweight and obesity are now recognised as the second biggest preventable cause of cancer in the UK after smoking, responsible for around 22,800 cases each year.[iii] Carrying excess body fat is linked to as many as 18 different cancers, including some of the most common (such as breast and bowel), and some of the hardest to treat (such as pancreatic and oesophageal).[iv]
Beyond weight, other elements of diet can also be significant risk factors for certain types of cancer. Red and processed meat increase the risk of bowel cancer, while a diet high in fibre reduces risk of bowel cancer.[v] All of this taken together, highlights the urgent need to address obesity and support healthier diets as a central plank of a serious approach to cancer prevention.
Young people and schools
Developing healthy eating habits early in life is essential, as these habits can influence dietary patterns over a lifetime. During term time, children consume around a third of their daily food at school, and for some, a school meal is their only substantial meal of the day. This makes it particularly important that school meals meet a high standard of nutrition. Yet, evidence suggests that this is often not the case.
A 2022 study found that ultra-processed foods (UPFs) accounted for on average 64% of the calories in UK school meals (61% in primary, 70% in secondary), though the percentage was higher in packed lunches.[vi] Though not all UPFs are equally harmful, UPFs are more often high in saturated fat, sugar, and salt. There are clear grounds to believe that UPFs increase cancer risk through their impact on obesity, and some evidence that they may directly increase cancer risk.[vii] Reducing the proportion of UPFs in school meals should therefore be a policy goal. But the school curriculum could also take a more proactive approach to encouraging a healthy food culture, for instance through sensory food lessons, cookery classes, and food growth.
The wider food environment around schools also plays a role. Recent planning policy changes that restrict the opening of fast-food outlets near schools represent a very positive step towards creating healthier environments for children, though the government could go further and ban the advertising of junk food from areas around schools.
We believe that the battle against obesity begins with young people. We believe the government must now take stronger action to raise nutrition standards in school meals, with a target to reduce the proportion of ultra-processed foods, as well encouragement for schools to support activities like cookery and food growth that promote a healthier food culture among children and young people.
We strongly endorse changes to planning policy which prohibit fast food outlets close to schools.
Availability and marketing of high fat, sugar and salt foods
Advertising and marketing can be key drivers of the consumption of unhealthy, high fat, sugar and salt (HFSS) foods. Children and young people in particular are heavily exposed to advertising for such products, with evidence showing that this exposure directly influences their food preferences and consumption patterns.[viii]
The UK Government has legislated for a 9pm watershed on TV advertising of HFSS foods and restrictions on paid-for advertising online, but measures have been diluted and implementation delayed several times. Other forms of marketing, including price promotions, such as “Buy One Get One Free” and the placement of HFSS foods in high-footfall locations like checkouts, are also proven to increase purchases of unhealthy products.[ix] Sports sponsorship remains another way in which companies selling HFSS foods are extremely active in promoting their goods.[x]
Meanwhile, access to healthier foods remains highly unequal. The Food Foundation has shown that the cost of a healthy diet can be unaffordable for many low-income households, with price promotions often working against healthier choices.[xi] Expanding availability and affordability of nutritious foods is therefore a vital counterpart to restrictions on unhealthy marketing.
The UK Government should implement the 9pm watershed and online advertising restrictions on HFSS foods without further delay, extend restrictions to cover all promotions and product placement, and prohibit sports sponsorship by HFSS brands.
Measures should also be taken to improve the availability and affordability of healthy foods, particularly for low-income households.
Planning policy and fast-food retail
The local retail environment may also have a significant influence on dietary behaviour. We know that fast food outlet density is higher in the most deprived areas of the country. [xii] And this could be playing a role in worsening health inequalities. Since 2024, national planning policy requires local authorities to control planning permission for new outlets. However, some councils, including Gateshead, have used Supplementary Planning Documents to make full use of their planning powers to restrict hot-food takeaways.
Local councils should use all planning powers at their disposal to limit the proliferation of fast-food outlets, particularly in areas with high concentrations of such outlets, or in communities with high levels of health conditions associated with poor diet.
Price levies and reformulation of unhealthy foods
The UK’s Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL), announced in 2016 and introduced in 2018, has successfully driven major reductions in the sugar content of soft drinks. The sugar content per portion of drinks covered by the levy fell by well over 40% from 2015 to 2024. This meant that, even though the sales volumes of these drinks increased over that period, total sugar sold from them decreased by nearly 40%.[xiii]
The evidence suggests that the levy has led to lower daily sugar intakes for both children and adults in the UK, and that over 80% of this has been down to product reformulation.[xiv] Indeed, by the time the levy was implemented, most manufacturers had reduced sugar levels in fizzy drinks to below levy thresholds.[xv] By contrast, voluntary sugar-reduction programmes for other food categories have typically failed to meet their targets.[xvi]
For these reasons, SDIL should be viewed as a public health success story, and a model that can be built upon. The government has consulted on extending the levy to milk-based drinks and reducing the minimum sugar content at which SDIL applies. This is to be welcomed, but there is potential for this approach to be extended much more widely.
We believe that levy-type fiscal tools like SDIL should be expanded to cover a much broader range of high-sugar, high-fat and high-salt foods and drinks. The government should use these to help meet ambitious reformulation targets for food categories that are underperforming.
The initial focus of these levies should be on those types of food and drink most responsible for driving obesity and poor dietary outcomes.
NHS: treatment and prevention
The NHS has a central role to play in reducing obesity and overweight. In recent years, this has involved an increasing focus on weight control drugs. Such drugs may work for some individuals, but effective population-level strategies will still require a primary focus on prevention, early intervention, diet and lifestyle support. There are myriad opportunities within NHS services to provide effective weight loss interventions. There is also a growing consensus that prevention begins outside clinical settings.
We believe the NHS must balance its focus on treatment of obesity (including medication) and with a strong focus on prevention, ensuring that lifestyle and behavioural interventions are more robustly supported.
All community healthcare professionals should be expected to, and better equipped to, offer advice on the dangers of being overweight, provide basic guidance and point to further assistance.
This should go hand-in-hand with the 10 Year Health Plan’s welcome ambition to develop a personalised approach to obesity prevention, including identifying those at highest risk.
Greater Promotion of the DHSC’s Eatwell Guide
The Department of Health’s Eatwell Guide provides accessible, evidence-based guidance on achieving a balanced diet, mainly by means of pictorial representation of the optimal proportions of each food group that an individual should consume.[xvii] The Guide is used in public sector guidance and educational materials, but its reach and impact has been quite limited. It has also been highlighted that following the Eatwell Guide can be challenging for households on low incomes.[xviii]
We believe that the DHSC’s Eatwell Guide should be further developed and more effectively promoted to enhance its reach and relevance. Public education campaigns involving supermarkets and celebrity chefs could draw upon and promote Eatwell and its messages.
Such campaigns could also develop its advice on nutrition into easy recipes and low-cost meals that can offer more practical support to people on following a balanced diet.
[i] NHS, One in eight toddlers and primary school aged children obese, 2024
[ii] World Cancer Research Fund, Weight, Obesity and Cancer
[iii] University of Manchester, Understanding the link between cancer and obesity
[iv] WCRF, New study links overweight and obesity to more cancers than previously shown, 2023.
[v] WCRF, Fibre, wholegrains and cancer
[vi] Imperial College London, Ultra-processed foods make up almost two-thirds of Britain’s school meals, 2022
[vii] There is a developing body of research on the health risks associated with UPFs. Global reviews of UPF consumption have identified direct associations with increased risk of cancer, among other serious health outcomes. Fiolet et al, Consumption of ultra-processed foods and cancer risk: results from NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort, 2018
[viii]DHSC & DCMS, Introducing further advertising restrictions on TV and online for products high in fat, salt and sugar: government response, 2021
[ix] DHSC, Restricting checkout, end-of-aisle, and store entrance sales of food and drinks high in fat, salt, and sugar (HFSS): Impact Assessment, 2020
[x] The Children’s Food Campaign and Food Active, Kicking Out Junk Food: sports sponsorship and a better deal for children’s health. 2021
[xi] The Food Foundation, Why healthy and affordable diets are out of reach for many, 2025
[xii] Public Health England, Fast food outlets: density by local authority in England, 2018
[xiii] Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID), Sugar reduction in drinks: 2015 to 2024, 2025
[xiv] Dickson, Gehrsitz & Kemp., Does a Spoonful of Sugar Levy Help the Calories Go Down? An Analysis of the UK Soft Drinks Industry Levy, 2021
[xv] HM Treasury, Soft Drinks Industry Levy comes into effect, 2018
[xvi] Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID), Sugar reduction programme: industry progress 2015 to 2020, 2022
[xvii] Department for Health and Social Care, The Eatwell Guide, 2016
[xviii] The Food Foundation, Affordability of the UK’s Eatwell Guide, 2021