Child obesity rising: Medical expert calls for tougher sugar and salt taxes

England’s chief medical officer is calling for more effective legislation to limit excessive salt and sugar.

Professor Dame Sally Davies has criticised the food industry for failing to deliver on current voluntary targets.

Current food options have made it impossible for families to make healthy choices, she said in her annual report.

Children's health has been on decline due to poor diet as the numbers for childhood obesity continues to rise.

The NHS reported that the number of children treated for type 2 diabetes has risen 40 per cent in the last three years.

Furthermore, dietary behaviours are among the leading causes of death and accounted for almost 15 per cent of all deaths in England in 2017.

Davies says this is because “diets in England do not comply with current guidelines for a healthy diet.”

Sugary drinks, foods high in refined carbohydrates and unhealthy fats, excess salt, and insufficient fibre are unhealthy staples in an English diet.

She went on to urge the government to combat cultural eating habits by expanding the current tax on salt and sugar.

According to The Independent, Davies laid out the next steps the NHS needs to take during a meeting:

“We should give [the food industry] a chance but if they don’t deliver it we need to threaten them with mandating it, and then do it.

“We have to shape it so it’s easy to take the healthy choice. Do you want to call that nanny state? If so I’m chief nanny.”

She is reacting to the government’s recent decision to cut public health budgets for obesity and children’s services by £85 million next year.

Money raised by the sugar tax, Davies explained, should be redirected into government health funds.

Professor Graham MacGregor, chair of both Action on Sugar and Action on Salt, stood by Davies statements, calling for the government’s immediate action.

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