Traffic light labelling and a 9pm watershed for junk food advertising needed
26 July 2006
Commenting on the Prime Minister's speech on public health (today) the National Heart Forum says:
"The NHF welcomes the PM's very public commitment to the fundamental importance of the role of the state in disease prevention and improving the public's health. It now wants to see the Government's recent successes in tackling smoking repeated in action on unhealthy diets. The 'enabling State' the PM refers to should make healthy choices the easy choices for people by ensuring all food retailers and manufacturers operating within the UK implement the Food Standards Agency's front-of-pack 'traffic light' nutritional labelling on all processed foods, and by restricting junk food advertising on television before the 9pm watershed.
"It is encouraging that the PM appears to echo the concerns of the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) about NHS disinvestment in public health. The CMO's report last Friday (21 July) highlighted the unsustainable consequences of 'raiding public health budgets' to pay for acute sector deficits.
"Only when these measures and others are embedded in our society, will the government stand a chance of achieving the 'fully engaged scenario' for public health envisaged by Sir Derek Wanless in his review of the future of the NHS; an NHS that is only needed to treat those who are unavoidably sick."
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