Tougher junk food rules would do us all good

The UK is heading for a season of discontent. Prices are spiralling, possible energy blackouts loom, public services are crumbling, and soon there will be no more three-for-two deals on Quality Street.

Curbs on multibuy promotions for unhealthy foods are set to begin in England in a year’s time, as part of a series of anti-obesity measures pushed by former prime minister Boris Johnson. Scotland and Wales plan their own versions. Yet Johnson’s government had already delayed the English reforms by a year from 2022 and his shortlived successor Liz Truss floated the idea that they could be scrapped altogether.

As the economy flounders, with particular pressure on low-income households, the measures to reduce promotions and advertising for food high in fat, salt and sugar are easily portrayed as Scrooge-like. A new administration grappling with double-digit inflation may be tempted to roll them back or delay indefinitely. That would be a mistake.

The new rules include limits introduced this year on where unhealthy foods can be placed in stores, as well as planned curbs on TV and digital advertising, multibuy deals and soft drink refills. The food industry sees them as a gratuitous assault on living costs — as well as their own profits.

Companies highlight, for example, data prepared for Public Health England indicating that without supermarket promotions, a typical household would have to pay £634 more a year for the same food. The restrictions on placing unhealthy food near store entrances, checkouts and ends of aisles will also cut into manufacturers’ profits, reducing the discounts they are able to offer across their ranges, executives argue.

Yet campaigners highlight how food marketing currently steers shoppers towards junk foods. Cancer Research UK has found promotions are biased towards unhealthy categories, while shoppers who take advantage of them suffer from poor nutrition.

Henry Dimbleby, who produced a food review for the government, argued that the human tendency to hunt for quick calories has combined with the profit motive to produce a “junk food cycle”. Companies seeking to please consumer palates invest in developing and marketing high-calorie foods at scale, driving down costs compared with more nutritious fare. The households most vulnerable to overconsuming these products are those on low incomes.

Foodmakers say the planned changes will have little impact on obesity. It is true that government’s impact assessment for each of its anti-obesity measures forecast average daily calorie reductions for individuals in the single digits.

Yet these figures do not take into account the disproportionate effect of both obesity and measures to combat it on specific, vulnerable segments of society. Nor do they take into account the future effects on children whose dietary habits may be set while they are young.

Pressure from governments and investors has already prompted food companies to bring out more healthy products. Brands from Mr Kipling cakes to Walkers crisps launched lower fat, salt and sugar lines as the junk food restrictions approached. The new products from major brands use cutting-edge technology and are being closely watched globally, said Anthony Fletcher, founder of Urban Legend, a reduced-sugar doughnut maker.

Chocolate is trickier. Attempts to produce lower-sugar chocolate have so far proved almost as shortlived as Liz Truss’s premiership. But regulation will encourage development of healthier packaged foods and push companies to promote them. Excess treats at knockdown prices will not solve a shameful and mounting malnutrition problem.

Government measures to cut the amount of salt in food, combined with the threat of enforcement, dramatically reduced salt in bread in the early 2000s. The shift in taste was too gradual for people’s palates to notice, and research found thousands of lives were saved.

Now, a shift away from junk food is crucial to combating obesity which is already costing the health service an estimated £6.5bn a year and causing escalating human misery. A government reluctant to take “nanny state” measures will find itself on the hook for yet more health costs instead.

As low-income households grapple with a precipitous drop in living standards, a few relatively healthy bargains are the least a new administration can offer them. Food brands may complain, but they are capable of rising to the challenge.