How to tackle obesity: why industry must step up

The country is facing a formidable weight crisis. Almost two-thirds of adults are now overweight or obese, increasing their risk of chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Child obesity is growing at an unprecedented rate. Nearly 1 in 4 children are overweight or obese by the time they start primary school, rising to more than 1 in 3 by the time they leave it.

Child obesity

The UK now ranks among the highest across OECD countries for adult obesity rates. Yet this is neither inevitable nor intractable. So, what can be done about it?

Diagnosing the problem – and the solution

Obesity is a systemic issue driven by structural factors including a commercial food environment that makes unhealthy choices cheap, readily available, and aggressively marketed – especially to children and in deprived areas.

Individuals make daily decisions for themselves and for their families about what to eat and how to live. Better information, clearer labelling, and healthier default foods and drinks can help people make choices that align with their intentions. But individual responsibility must be matched by a system that makes those choices realistic and sustainable.

History shows us that when government sets clear statutory rules, industry adapts fast. The Soft Drinks Industry Levy led to a 46% drop in sugar content in affected drinks. TfL’s junk food ad ban was linked to a 7% reduction in household purchases of food high in fat, salt, and sugar. Research suggests reducing daily intake by just 50 calories could lift 340,000 children and 2 million adults out of obesity. These are not marginal gains – they prove that policy can reshape the environment.

Yet time and again we fall back on voluntary measures that consistently fail to deliver population-level change. We place the burden on individuals in an environment designed to undermine them and let industry set its own standards. The result is a crisis that is costing the NHS over £11.4 billion and wider society more than £74 billion each year. And this is not just about obesity; excess weight affects more people and is the precursor to obesity. A prevention strategy that overlooks this intervenes too late.

Children are paying the price

Children are on the frontline of industry influence. Walk into any supermarket, scroll through social media or glance at a billboard and it is clear that from an early age their choices are shaped by aggressive marketing. Healthier foods cost more than twice as much and more than 1 in 4 children are growing up in food insecure households, creating a perfect storm.

Products high in fat, sugar and salt have become normalised in children’s diets. Type 2 diabetes – once considered a condition of older adults – is rising sharply among children and young people, with a 44% increase in diagnoses among under-25s in just six years. Parents and carers want to give their children the best start in life but we are witnessing a generational shift in chronic illness.

Excess weight in childhood often persists into adulthood, leading to a growing inequalities gap, with people in the most deprived areas 2.4 times more likely to be admitted to hospital for obesity-related conditions. Without urgent, coordinated action, we risk locking in poor health for decades.

Why now?

Public appetite for change is strong: 81% support making healthy food cheaper, 70% support limiting fast food outlets near schools, and 69% support restricting junk food advertising.

Before taking office, Health Secretary Wes Streeting warned the food industry to ‘get on board the steamroller or go under it’ and vowed to compel manufacturers to reformulate unhealthy food products. But since then, ambition has softened. Long-promised restrictions on junk food advertising have been watered down and delayed.

The government needs to go much further and faster on action to tackle the damage caused by unhealthy food. Tighter advertising rules for children must be aligned with the upcoming child poverty strategy, recognising that improving access to nutritious food goes hand in hand with reducing poverty. The prize is not only fewer people living with preventable illness, but also a narrowing of health inequalities between the poorest and richest.

A new deal with industry

It is time for the government to reset its relationship with industry – underpinned by transparency and accountability. This means independent reporting, mandatory targets and compliance measures. This will enable better scrutiny and accountability of companies.

The new healthy food standard, requiring retailers to promote healthier food and drink choices and reporting on healthy food sales, aims to do just that. In a market driven by margins, doing the right thing can mean sacrificing profit or losing out to rivals. Regulation levels the playing field, enabling companies to act without competitive disadvantage. That’s why major retailers welcomed this move, signalling a major step forward.

However, allowing businesses to meet the standard in ‘whichever way works best for them’ risks repeating past mistakes, with flexibility becoming a loophole. With a long history of industry lobbying weakening public health measures, the government must resist capture by vested interests and robustly enforce standards.

Other countries have shown what is possible; Denmark’s public-private partnership with flour millers transformed the nation’s diet through a collaborative yet firm approach. That is the model we need: partnership on terms that prioritises public health.

The bottom line

The commercial food environment helped create today’s weight crisis and must now help solve it. Given the scale of the challenge, the government must use all available tools – taxation, marketing restrictions, and reformulation targets – to set direction and ensure accountability.

People must also be empowered to eat healthily through more information and a better choice architecture. This is the heart of the solution: shared responsibility between individuals, the state, and industry to make the healthy choice the easy choice.

The stakes are clear – an NHS buckling under pressure, and a generation of children growing up in a system that sets them up for poor health. In order to realise the shift from sickness to prevention, we need a fundamental rebalancing of power between public health and commercial interests.