Junk food diets weigh heavily on children’s health – Footprint

Poor quality diets linked to junk food consumption are causing a significant decline in children’s health, according to new research.

Children in England are now shorter and more likely to have obesity and type 2 diabetes than they were a decade ago, according to a report by the Food Foundation, meaning babies born today will enjoy a year less good health than babies born a decade ago.

The report assessed data from a range of sources, including the non-communicable diseases risk factor collaboration, the national child measurement programme, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and the Office for National Statistics. It found an increase in conditions like obesity and type 2 diabetes driven by calorie dense diets.

Obesity among 10-11 year olds has increased by 30% since 2006, with 1 in 5 children living with obesity by the time they leave primary school; meanwhile type 2 diabetes in young people has tripled since 2012.

The study also identified impacts on health from undernutrition. The height of five-year olds has been falling since 2013 with UK children shorter than those in nearly all other high income countries.

The Food Foundation said the findings raised questions regarding the nutritional quality of food that children are eating, adding that poor diet could be due to a range of factors, from high levels of poverty and deprivation to the aggressive promotion of cheap junk food by the food industry.

It added that failure to reverse the current trajectory will lead to a generation of children burdened throughout their lives by diet-related illness and an overwhelmed healthcare system.

Ahead of the UK general election, high profile campaigners and food policy experts joined the Food Foundation in calling for reform of the food system so that every child can access the nutrition needed to grow up healthily.

“The decline in children’s health shown clearly in this report is a shocking and deeply sad result of the failures of the food system in the UK,” said Henry Dimbleby, the former government food tsar and author of the national food strategy.

“We need the next government to take decisive action to make healthy and sustainable food affordable, stem the constant flow of junk food and to realise that investing in children’s health is an investment in the future of the country.”

Celebrity chef and food campaigner, Jamie Oliver, added: “There’s no silver bullet to fix this, which is why we need a comprehensive approach that doesn’t just tinker around the edges but revolutionises the rules and fundamentally improves the quality of food across the board. The leader who understands this and gets serious about child health will be the person who turned the tide on obesity – and won.”