We must put children first

More than one in five children in Receptions – aged four and five – are overweight or obese.

Overweight children become overweight adults and as a result are far more likely to develop conditions such as diabetes and heart disease at a younger age than we’ve seen in previous generations.

These conditions have a devastating impact on individuals and place a huge financial burden on our already overstretched NHS.

With councils in England warning that Government cuts to public health funding could hamper their efforts to tackle obesity, ministers must put our children first.

The Government’s desperately needed childhood obesity strategy has been repeatedly delayed, and worryingly, a leaked document suggests that minister’s pledges to help protect our children, have been watered down after lobbying from the food industry.

It is vital that the Government produces a comprehensive childhood obesity strategy with ambitious targets, backed up by legislation, for the reduction of sugar, saturated fat and salt from our food, and introduces restrictions on junk food marketing to prevent manufacturers targeting children.

Professor Parveen Kumar,

Board of science chairman,

British Medical Association