The Foresight saga
I'm back in the office for a day after a busy week in Aberdeen and meeting scientific advisory committee colleagues, but I wanted to blog about obesity before the weekend as it's been very much in the news over the past week.
There was plenty of horizon-scanning science in last week’s Foresight discussion document into obesity, with references to nanotechnology, genomics and robotics, and their potential effect on people’s health.
There are also, of course, some sobering statistics, including the frightening prediction that 60% of men, 50% of women and a quarter of children and young people will be obese by 2050, unless action is taken.
The Foresight report, overseen by Government Chief Scientist Sir David King, recognises that it’s going to take more than one individual or organisation to halt the rise in obesity.
The Agency has always tried to take a multifaceted approach. Communicating messages, for example on healthy eating, direct to the public while working with the food industry to make it easier for people to make healthier choices by encouraging a reduction of salt, fat and sugar in foods and clearer labelling.
Our recently launched eatwell plate is one of the tools we use to make the message about a healthy balanced diet accessible.
From an Agency point of view, it was good to read the references in the Foresight report both to salt reduction in bread and other foods (as a result of the Agency’s campaign and work with industry) and to food promotion and children.
It was Professor Gerard Hastings’ review, commissioned by the FSA and published in 2003, that concluded that advertising does affect children’s food choices and behaviour.
Professor Hastings and his team, from Strathclyde University’s Centre for Social Marketing, also found that advertising doesn’t just affect which brands children choose but also the types of food they choose.
Their review paved the way for the Agency’s subsequent work on nutrient profiling, something I’ve blogged about before.
The Agency’s work on front-of-pack signpost labelling and the developing activity on saturated fat and energy together with early engagement with the catering sector provide useful avenues for the Agency to continue to pursue its aim of helping people choose safe and healthy food.
But reading what other bloggers have written in response to the Foresight report does confirm that now is not the time for complacency or smugness about what has been achieved to date.
Guardian blogger Rebecca Smithers called for clearer and more transparent front and back-of-pack labelling and a 9pm watershed for junk food ads on TV, concluding: ‘We are what we eat; for many children today that is bad news.’
The Foresight report came out a week before the NICE guidance on behaviour change, which recognises that behaviour change requires working in partnership with individuals, communities and populations to plan and implement interventions.
This is the type of good practice that the Agency is starting to adopt in much of its food choice research.
The Agency is also active in relation to addressing gaps identified in the NICE obesity guidance and has recently commissioned a pilot project that aims to help smokers who are quitting to maintain a healthy weight.
These research activities have been designed to provide robust and practical evidence-based approaches, including the use of psychological models, to addressing issues of achieving a healthy weight and maintaining it.
What shouldn’t happen is that documents such as the Foresight report gather dust on the shelf, but their stark warnings are taken seriously by Government, industry and consumers. In the meantime, the increasingly oft quoted mantra of ‘eat less, exercise more’ is one many of us can and should be applying.
Tell me what you think.
