Childhood Obesity

Speech by Paul Burstow delivered to Adjournment debate on Tue 25th Jan 2005

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) on securing the debate. It is a useful opportunity to review progress and to pose some questions to the Government. The hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) talked about the need to be obsessive. I concur that he is obsessive about this issue—and rightly so. A litany of statistics has been set out during the debate. Like him, I do not propose to trot out many more, but they are compelling evidence of the need to take the issue seriously and for this to be a matter of consistent and clear focus for public policy. They are also make a compelling case for us as individuals to take stock of our own lives and the lives of those for whom we have caring responsibilities.

I take the point that was made by the hon. Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate) that perhaps the obesity time bomb went off and we almost did not notice it. We are now feeling the aftershock and that in turn will lead to some huge health consequences. The Health Committee paid a visit to the United States as part of its inquiry into obesity. One of the points that was made when we visited the parks department in New York—the point was made time and again and it has been echoed in today's debate—was that children as young as four or five were now being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Cases among children of that age have been diagnosed in this country. The consequences for those young people's lives—lives that will be brought to an end far sooner than they should be, and that will be blighted by disability, blindness and many other things—mean that it behoves us all to make this an issue that involves not just debate, but action.

I was particularly struck by some research that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) undertook. He considered the views of heads of PE departments. Activity is undoubtedly part of the equation. The issue is about how we readjust the energy-in, energy-out equation so that we get ourselves into a virtuous circle rather the vicious weight-gain spiral that we are in now. In the survey, he considered what was going on in schools and found that just one in 10 heads of PE believe the average pupil in secondary school to be in good health and to have good fitness levels. Some 65 per cent. of those same heads of PE said that they felt that the health of those in their charge, in their schools, had deteriorated during the past five years.

That statistic bears out many of the findings of Sport England and other organisations, and of the chief medical officer, who found that levels of activity had gone down over the past decade or so. It is therefore not surprising that when the National Audit Office considered obesity it came up with the shocking cost figures that the Health Committee has, in turn, looked at and updated. In 1998, the Committee found that the direct costs to the national health service would be £480 million and the indirect costs £2.1 billion—a combined cost of £2.58 billion to the economy. It estimated that the cost would rise to £3.6 billion by 2010. The Committee recalculated those costings and found that the cost of obesity alone was £3.7 billion—and that is the cost now, not by 2010. So the very conservative figures that the NAO came up with are already found to be wanting. The challenge is found to be greater. When "overweight" is added to the equation, the total cost rises to £7.4 billion a year, as we have heard. We need to be doing more to promote physical activity as part of the equation to reduce those risk factors.

I was struck by the contribution of the hon. Member for Southend, West regarding the parental angst of taxiing one's children from one place to another. The evidence from the University College London study into physical activity is very persuasive. It is not just the physical activity within the curriculum that matters. More calories were burned by walking to and from school than during the two hours of weekly PE lessons. It is not surprising, if most of that time is taken up with getting to the gym and getting changed, then having the exercise before getting changed and away from the gym, that that two hours does not have the impact that is needed. Clearly, there is a lot that has to be done across Government outside the Department of Health, in planning and highways policies, to make our environment beyond the school safer, so that people feel more willing to walk to school with their children, and more content for children to walk to school. That has to be a focus.

The Olympics in 2012 are all about excellence in sport. The key to cracking this problem is about encouraging everyone to participate in physical activity. We must not lose sight of that when we make decisions about the way in which the curriculum is structured and funding for sport is orientated, so that we do not underfund everyone taking part at the expense of ensuring that we have the excellence as well.

Nutrition has been mentioned. I feel very strongly that we need to see every school developing a nutrition policy in consultation with parents and children. That would be a powerful tool for change within schools. It would make possible critical discussion of the merits and demerits of, for example, tuck shops and vending machines, and what should be in those vending machines. That could be a useful way of moving things forward at a local level without undermining the autonomy of school governing bodies.

There is an area, however, where the Government have the right to step in: nutrition standards for school meals. One of the areas that I was particularly disappointed with in the public health White Paper, "Choosing Health: making health choices easier", was the Government's approach to nutrition standards. The Health Committee recommended that the English standards should be abandoned and we should adopt the Scottish standards. The Government are committed to a leisurely three-year review of this. They are only committed to considering it. They are not minded, at this point, to make such an important change, which could have a real impact on the quality of the food served in our schools.

It is worth picking up on what we have done to under-educate people about food. The hon. Member for Dartford mentioned that there is less education now, and there are no requirements in secondary schools. It is not surprising, therefore, that in 1983 the average time spent preparing a meal was about an hour. Today, that has gone down to 13 minutes. It is amazing that it takes that long to unwrap the packaging of a fast food meal and shove it in the microwave, but clearly it does. My belief is that we need to have a curriculum that equips everyone with the basics to shop for, and prepare, a meal—not a curriculum that turns out the food technologists of the future.

The other point that I should like to pick up briefly is reformulation. It is important not only that we focus on salt, but that sugar and fat are rapidly addressed. Food labelling has a part to play in driving the reformulation agenda. We need to move beyond a voluntary approach to labelling towards something mandatory, not least because of the confusion that could arise if a multiplicity of labelling schemes emerged throughout the country. Surely the Government should give a clear lead and a framework within which labelling schemes can be operated.

Hon. Members have rightly highlighted the challenges that obesity poses to the country and the costs, human, personal and to the economy as a whole, that it imposes. I hope that the Minister will say—or at least indicate when she will be able to say—at what point she believes the sum total of Government policies that bear down on the problem will reach a tipping point and the obesity trends will begin to reverse. If the Government are willing to set targets for others, we need to be clear what their own targets are, so that we can see whether Government policy really is making a difference and, ultimately, saving lives.