MPs call for ban on fast food outlets opening near schools to tackle obesity | Obesity

Fast food chains such as KFC should be stopped from opening near schools and junk food advertising should be banned on billboards and public transport to help prevent obesity, MPs will say today.

The House of Commons health committee will also urge ministers to stop bowing to food industry lobbying and work harder to tackle a problem that costs the UK £74bn a year and causes major illness.

Bold action is needed as hundreds of initiatives to tackle rising obesity levels have failed since 1992, according to a cross-party group of MPs. In England, two thirds (66%) of adults and 28% of young people aged 13-15 are now either overweight or obese.

The report also criticizes Keir Starmer’s Labor government, saying it has failed to deliver on promises to implement policies to tackle malnutrition.

Committee chair and Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran highlighted the widespread advertising and availability of unhealthy food and called on ministers to take strong action to curb “the constant bombardment of promotions and advertising we see and hear in our daily lives – on our screens, on children’s journeys home from school, when we set foot in shops and in checkout queues”.

Ministers should give local councils more powers to prevent fast food takeaways being opened near schools, MPs say. Firms are exploiting “loopholes” in national planning policy to mount successful legal challenges against councils’ efforts to stop them. These loopholes allow outlets selling takeaway items to be classified as restaurants rather than fast food establishments. MPs added that the “uncertainty” about what a hot meal package is needs to be clarified urgently.

“It has become common knowledge that if we want to stop the child obesity epidemic, we need to eliminate the appeal of fast food restaurants near schools and in areas with high levels of childhood obesity,” Moran said.

“Reforms to national planning regulations should give local governments the power to fight big chains for the sake of our children’s health.”

In 2015 Gateshead council began restricting the opening of fast food restaurants near schools and in the poorest areas, saying this was helping to reduce childhood obesity locally. The report describes how KFC took legal action against 43 councils seeking to do the same and won more than half of those cases.

Lawmakers also support “a holistic, consistent and watertight approach to restricting all exposures to children.” [advertising of foods that are] high in fat, sugar or salt.” Around £680 million a year is spent advertising food and non-alcoholic drinks on television, radio and outdoors.

People’s daily living environments have become so “obesogenic” that outdoor advertising of unhealthy foods should be banned, such as on billboards, buses and trains, they say.

The Advertising Association said such a plan would not reduce obesity. “Decades of research across many academic disciplines have repeatedly shown that advertising does not contribute to long-term changes in obesity or BMI, and that advertising restrictions do not improve the nation’s health,” a spokesman said.

“Regarding the committee’s call for a ban on all outdoor advertising, we will again point to the evidence that this will have little or no impact on childhood obesity levels.”

Lawmakers also recommend:

• Supermarkets should be forced to display fruit and vegetables prominently, for example near entrances and tills, to help increase sales.

• All foods should start to have traffic light-style labels on the front of the pack, which some supermarket chains already use, to tell consumers how healthy or unhealthy they are.

• The government must urgently advance its previously stated intention to force food manufacturers to disclose what percentage of their sales come from healthy and unhealthy products.

• Ministers must be braver [and start] “To stand up to the challenge of industry, which often tries to delay the introduction of measures to limit malnutrition.”