Last night I
attended the Food Foundation event
on the state of UK nutrition and how to improve it. The Food Foundation is a
new non-profit working on UK food and nutrition issues, funded by a couple of
non-industry foundations and run by the stellar Anna Taylor.
The event kicked
off with Prof. Boyd Swinburn who gave us a really nice overview of how to
improve the food environment (the bit in between people and their diets): the
economic costs of different foods, the rules set for businesses by governments
(policies and legislation) and cultural norms.
The 3 key things
for shaping the food system? Strong government leadership, noisy but organized
civil society and responsive businesses.
I presented some
data from the GNR on the UK. Stats
that surprised me? The UK is last in fresh food purchases (using Euromonitor
data) but middling in terms of purchases of fruits and vegetables.
Fiona Watson
presented some of the work the Food Foundation is doing on applying the INFORMAS
Food EPI food system scorecard to the UK (should be interesting when done).
Inge Kauer
presented the latest Access to
Nutrition Index which holds companies to account for their commitment and
actions. She noted how some companies respond well to the scores and some don’t
(not always clear why) and that investors and investment advisors are beginning
to pay attention to the score and factoring it into their investment decisions.
Jo Ralling from
the Jamie Oliver Food
Foundation mentioned some of their work including their in-restaurant sugar
tax (first proceeds allocated to water projects in UK).
Andrew Opie from
the British Retail Consortium
told us that government needed to show strong leadership and apply any new
rules to all businesses and all other stakeholders.
Guy Poppy from
the UK Food Standards Agency reminded us
how much evidence matters, and the government’s reliance on systematic reviews.
Some takeaways
*The title of
this blog is inspired by Glen Tarman’s (Action Against
Hunger) semi-epiphany --what is the UK going to commit to in the upcoming
Rio Nutrition for Growth Summit—not for other countries but for its own
population? What is the UK government's nutrition accountability to its own people?
*Our colleague
from the retail association noted that the price of healthy foods had actually
declined in the last 10 years. I noted
that the ODI report from
2015 on food prices did not agree with that. Andrew replied that their
data was better than the governments and I could buy it for £6000 :)
*A representative
from the National
Obesity Observatory told the audience to tear up the UK
Nutrition Country Profile (nice) because it was wrong: the UK did have data
on under 5 overweight. Afterwards I told
this gentleman that I went to visit Public Health England last year and they
told me categorically that they did not have any data on under 5 year olds. It turns out this gentleman was referring to
data for kids in reception (age 4-5). So
don’t rip up the UK
Nutrition Country Profile just yet.
*In response to a
question from the floor about whether food is the new tobacco (and the retail
consortium colleague flatly rejected this analogy), Boyd Swinburn made the
great point that the fight to prevent obesity has parallels with many public
health efforts to prevent automobile accidents, industrial pollution, and unsafe food.
That is the first time I have heard that.
*Finally, there
was a lot of strategizing about Rio. I
reminded the audience that commitments for nutrition can be made by anyone, at
any time. It’s good to be organized, but
let’s not be too paralysed by summit politics.
The panel was
well chaired by Corinna Hawkes who reminded us that the struggle to improve
food systems is essentially about power and how civil society needed to power
up to engage properly in the negotiation (as Brazil has done).
1 comment:
Really interesting, thanks Lawrence - as always. Much respect for this effort!
Post a Comment