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Lazing, Gazing and Grazing – time for the ad industry to have a health check
By Katharine Jenner, Registered Nutritionist and Campaign Director at Action on Sugar When it comes to selling food and drink products, advertisers have a few tools at their disposal, such as image, price, packaging and distribution. But one important element that...
Pervasive and Inescapable: Parents’ and Children’s Views of Online Advertising of Unhealthy Food and Drink to Children
Dr Lauren Elsie White, SPECTRUM Research Fellow, University of Edinburgh In response to emerging evidence of a link between experiencing serious health consequences of contracting Covid-19 and obesity (Sattar et al., 2020) and the Prime Minister’s own experience of...
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Five years of the Obesity Health Alliance
By Helen Dickens, Assistant Director of Policy and Campaigns, Diabetes UK and member of the OHA Steering Group On 9 July 2015, I was invited to attend a workshop set up by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP). Bringing together 19 charities, royal colleges and...
Why Exercise is Fair Game for Junk Food Brands
By Daniel Hunt, Freelance Consultant in Public Health Policy Given the sheer volume of junk food marketing and promotions we see associated with sport, it’s easy to forget that this type of food is fundamentally unhealthy. For example, at their heart, the energy...
Why exercise is important, but nutrition is even better: sure-fire ways to help our health
By Daniel Hunt, Freelance Consultant in Public Health Policy As the COVID-19 pandemic has starkly reminded us, the basic functioning of the economy, and the building blocks of a fair society depend on good health. Many people have been put at greater risk of the virus...
“If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.”
How food companies are keeping unhealthy food in the spotlight during the pandemic This simple advice on advertising was oozed by (entirely fictional and utterly callous) advertising legend, Don Draper in Mad Men. While he wasn’t specifically advising brands on how to...
Coronavirus and the discussion of obesity
Sarah Le Broq, Director of Obesity UK, a charity supporting people living with obesity, blogs for us on the importance of language when discussing obesity and coronavirus. Obesity is a complex health condition. The UK Government’s Foresight Report published in 2007,...
The Role of Supermarkets in Helping us be Healthy
We are living through the worst public health crisis in a generation, the likes of which most of us in the UK will not have experienced before. The coronavirus pandemic is having an impact on all aspects of our lives, not least the food and drinks we are eating. What...
Sweet or Sour? Are sugar reduction efforts working?
By Mhairi Brown, Policy Coordinator, Action on Sugar It’s a new year, and a new decade to boot, and once again the UK has a new government in place, pledging to deliver where previous administrations have failed. Poor diet is now the leading risk factor for ill health...
2019 Election Manifesto Promises on Obesity
By Jamie Hamilton, OHA Public Affairs group With less than three weeks to go until December 12th, the General Election is fast approaching. Over the past two weeks, Britain’s major political parties have been busy setting out their stalls and laying out their policy...