Don’t get me wrong: today’s announcement on extending taxes to sugary drinks is *a very good thing.*
In 'It Takes A Village' we called for tougher action on sugar and stronger accountability for what the food & drink industry puts in its products.
🧵👇
www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Put simply: you can’t tweak your way out of a crisis - whether that’s the nation’s obesity crisis, or its search for political renewal and national confidence.
Read 'It Takes A Village' here for some other ideas:
www.ippr.org/articles/it-...
Is it lack of bandwidth, so only ready-made answers feel within reach?
Is it a lack of capability, with too little talent - or too little direction - to generate imaginative new ideas?
Or simply a lack of courage to break out of the 2010s policy groundhog day we seem stuck in?
Ultimately, this raises broader qus about the Government’s policy-making habits.
What I’m calling “tweakonomics” has been the dominant MO for the past 18 months, impressing neither voters in the ST nor delivering the long-term transformation the country needs (and was promised).
In It Takes A Village, we argue for a much broader tax on sugar and salt.
But equally the new Lancet evidence released last week on ultra-processed foods could point to the potential for a radical new levy designed along those lines too.
Which - for me - raises the real question: why reach for a small tweak to the Soft Drinks Industry Levy - a brilliant policy, yes, but conceived nearly a decade ago - instead of designing the next-generation answer to it?
Extending SDIL to milk-based drinks has been in the Whitehall drawer for years.
It was on the list of “ready-to-go” (i.e. politically safe, long advocated by the public health lobby) measures when I was health lead in the Cabinet Office in 2020.
One big reason: policy has been too incremental - behind the curve of seismic shifts in how food is produced, marketed and consumed.
Think the explosion of UPFs, fewer families eating together, more eating in front of screens, and the surge in takeaways and out-of-home food.
But… we also argued that much of the UK’s policy on diet, weight and nutrition has amounted to 'tinkering at the edges.'
Despite millions spent and several rounds of politically costly regulatory reform, the latest data shows the *highest ever* rates of obesity among 4+5 yos.
This speaks directly to parents’ concerns about the accessibility and affordability of healthy food, versus the ubiquity - and often pernicious marketing - of unhealthy options.
Don’t get me wrong: today’s announcement on extending taxes to sugary drinks is *a very good thing.*
In 'It Takes A Village' we called for tougher action on sugar and stronger accountability for what the food & drink industry puts in its products.
🧵👇
www.theguardian.com/business/202...
There was a target back in 2018 to halve childhood obesity. But new data shows that one in ten children in reception and one in five year 6 children are living with obesity.
Unsurprisingly, I quite agree! Thanks for your feedback Kate, much appreciated.
For the full report - and appendices 🤓 - see here: ippr.org/articles/it-...
Comment, DM or email with your thoughts. I'd love to hear your reflections.
/ENDS
🏛️ And critically, they wanted government to back them up in tackling the wider forces - social media and technology, unhealthy food environments and work pressures - that no family could tackle alone.
Handy infographic for clarified roles in a new social contract below:
6/ 👥 Finally, parents were strikingly aligned in what they wanted from services and policy alike:
🤝 more personal, human relationships with practitioners
🏡 more informal, low-pressure spaces for support
📘 clearer, easier to access info and better preparation for parenthood
1 in 3 had not received any antenatal education - increasing to 2 in 5 of the least financially secure - and 85% agreed that they learnt 'as you go along' rather than through any structured support.
5/ 🏋️♂️ Parents felt significant responsibility and influence over their children's health, but were struck by how little preparation or support they received in performing this critical role.
This may reflect younger parents' greater immersion in the digital world, or else the reality of becoming parents when the NHS can no longer be relied upon for timely support.
4/ 📱 In this context, the online world is playing an increasingly central - and confusing - role in health advice.
Parents under 35 were twice as likely to list social media and online forums among their top trusted sources of guidance as those over 45.
Parents were clearly shouldering more of the burden in response to clear strain within the NHS, with parents describing rushed or transactional interactions, turning to costly private care or cobbling together their own 'DIY' solutions for their children's health issues.
3/ 🚧 They also described growing barriers to that ideal – from the cost of healthy food and activities to pressures from work, new technology and overstretched public services.
2/ 🌱 Parents’ defined a healthy childhood holistically.
They wanted their children to feel safe, loved and free to be themselves, with varied, active experiences compared to the screen-based childhoods they feared were becoming the norm.
Meanwhile health services barely featured.
1/ One of the privileges of writing 'It Takes A Village' with @ippr.org has been hearing from parents about what it’s really like raising healthy children today.
Together with a @publicfirst.bsky.social survey of 1,500+ parents, we held 6 focus groups across England.
Here are my key takeaways 👇
Families are being left to fend for themselves as the NHS is struggling to support parents. If we want a more preventative NHS, we must start by backing parents with the support they need to keep their children healthy.
Find out more here: www.ippr.org/articles/it-...
Patchy advice is pushing new parents online, exposing them to misinformation and overload—and making it even harder to know how to keep their children healthy.
Read our new report here: www.ippr.org/articles/it-...
👶 | NEW REPORT: After decades of promises, children’s health is still stalling. Parents are doing more than ever, but the system isn’t backing them. This report sets out a new plan to create the conditions every child needs to thrive.
Read here: www.ippr.org/articles/it-...
A new social contract - empowering parents, strengthening community support, and backed by bold state action - is how we stand a chance of building the “healthiest generation of children ever”.
🙏 to co-author @sebrees1.bsky.social and @impurbanhealth.bsky.social for their generous support.
/ENDS
So if govt is serious about its shifts prevention & community care, it has to break the silence on family life.
See our infographic below - there is so much untapped potential, aligned to families own preferences, in this top right quadrant 👇
Of course, some forces dwarf what families can do alone.
Parents say tech companies and the food industry have more influence on children’s health than the NHS.
Digital harms, food environments, squeezed incomes and working conditions all powerfully shape family life.
