Plans to halt the rise in childhood obesity are confused, poorly co-ordinated and lack clarity and forcefulness, according to an influential Commons committee.

In 2004 the Government set a target of 2010 to halt the year-on-year rise in obesity in children under 11, but there are still no ring-fenced funds nor any specific programme to bring this about, the Public Accounts Committee says in a scathing report.

Particular anger is directed at the Department of Health’s plans to weigh and measure children in all primary schools but not tell parents the results.

This policy provoked one of the briskest exchanges in a public hearing in the Commons as the committee chairman, Edward Leigh, accused three Whitehall permanent secretaries of “talking drivel”.

Yesterday Mr Leigh said: “If a primary school finds that a child is overweight then the parents must be informed. To do otherwise would be to keep parents in the dark about health risks to their children.

“A campaign aimed at parents, children and teachers is supposed to be launched this year, three years after the target was set. When it appears it must bring home all the risks of being obese and show that obese children can make small changes to their behaviour that help them lose weight.”

Responsibility for the childhood obesity strategy is divided between three departments — Health, Education and Skills, and Culture, Media and Sport — and 26 bodies or groups of bodies, the report says.

This leads to confusion over roles and responsibilities. Mr Leigh said that it was “tricky territory”. That made it all the more urgent that the departments involved should work together to set a clear direction.

“It is lamentable that long after the target was set there is still so much dithering and still so little co-ordination,” he said.

Departments had been slow to react and efforts to work with the food industry to change the way that unhealthy products were marketed had failed, the committee said. It also called for the appointment of a high-profile figure to champion the battle against obesity.

Parents were still not being engaged, and a public information campaign was finally being launched only this year. The report found that “the departments’ strategy of working alongside the food industry to influence its approach to the marketing of foods and drinks that are high in fat, salt and sugar has not been successful in changing the way the majority of unhealthy foods are marketed”.

Meanwhile, the Department of Health has no idea if the strategy is working because there was a delay of two years in getting data on childhood obesity from the Health Survey for England. The attempt to measure obesity in primary school children ended in failure when fewer than half turned up, although the committee does not report this. The results of the exercise were meaningless because the parents of fatter children opted them out, as they were allowed to do.

Caroline Flint, the Public Health Minister, claimed that a lot had been achieved since the evidence on which the report was based had been gathered. She said: “There are no easy answers or quick-fix solutions. Changing behaviour requires long-term action on a number of fronts and that is what we are putting in place.”

People’s awareness of the importance of healthy eating and exercise had increased significantly, she said, and food labelling had become the norm.

Ofcom had made recommendations about food advertising on television; there had been “a transformation in school food” and the target of 80 per cent of children doing at least two hours of school sport a week had been beaten, she said. But Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said: “Conservatives share the committee’s alarm at the dramatic increase in childhood obesity and the apparently uncoordinated way in which the Government is dealing with it.”

Norman Lamb, the Lib Dem health spokesman, said: “The target-setting that characterises this Government’s control freakery is meaningless without concrete action and money.”





‘Talking drivel’



Dame Sue Street, David Bell and Hugh Taylor told the Public Accounts Committee that children should be weighed and measured but parents should not be told the results, for fear of “stigmatisation and other issues”. This irked Edward Leigh, the chairman.

Mr Leigh: “Sorry. I cannot bear this any more. This must be complete nonsense. This is ridiculous. The hearing has already lasted an hour and ten minutes. You have twenty more minutes. You have got to do better than this — three permanent secretaries. You are talking drivel.

“Are you actually saying, the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Health, that some vague target-setting, which apparently will not affect your target anyway, and working with partners, is more important than going back to the parents of a child and saying, ‘Your child is dangerously obese. Here is how we can help you do something about it’? Are you seriously telling the committee that?”

Mr Taylor: “No.”

Mr Leigh: “Right, well you had better try to do better.”

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