Efforts to tackle the obesity epidemic in children are confused, slow-paced and hampered by ministers' attempts to stay friendly with the food industry, a parliamentary watchdog will warn today. MPs on the Commons public accounts committee will call for the appointment of an "obesity tsar" to galvanise a public health drive and say parents must be given clearer guidelines about what to do if their children are obese. More pressure must also be put on food manufacturers to produce healthier brands, the MPs' report insists.
The committee says even simple messages to those with a problem are not being put across, nearly three years after the government set a target to halt obesity among children under 11. "It is lamentable that, long after the target was set, there is still so much dithering and confusion and still so little coordination," says Edward Leigh, chairman of the committee."
The committee's report also criticises government attempts to keep on good terms with the food industry, saying this approach has failed so far.
Tackling childhood obesity is the responsibility of three separate government departments - health, culture, media and sport, and education - which need to work better together, says the committee.
Statistics show an inexorable rise, from 9.9% of two- to -10-year-olds in 1995 to 13.4% in 2004. Obesity helps to cause heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure, and is estimated to reduce life expectancy by an average of nine years.
It has cost the NHS £1bn in direct costs and a further £2.6bn in indirect costs, with an expected extra £1bn by 2010 if trends continue.
The committee says that even though primary schoolchildren are now weighed and measured, the Department of Health is still not clear whether parents should be told if their child is obese. Ministers and officials have worried that children could be stigmatised and bullied if they are officially labelled as obese.
The report urges the department to move quickly and give parents information and advice on diet and exercise so that they can help their children. Parents need simple messages that are easy to act on, such as that cutting out one 80-calorie chocolate biscuit a day can help to lead a child out of obesity, it says.
The government is criticised for failing to do more to persuade the food industry to cut its marketing of junk food to children. "Despite working alongside the food industry for a number of years, the departments have yet to demonstrate much concrete action to change the way foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar are marketed," says the report. "Such foods are still marketed at times when children are watching television and some leading retailers have chosen to opt out of the voluntary food labelling scheme promoted buy the Food Standards Agency."
Ofcom has brought in a ban on advertising around programmes aimed at children, but many health bodies wanted no junk food advertising before 9pm, points out the report. The health minister, Caroline Flint, said there were no easy answers or quick fixes. She claimed much had been achieved, citing the five-a-day campaign to encourage fruit and vegetable consumption, Ofcom's advertising recommendations, and an increase in the amount of content labelling on food packaging.
But childhood obesity was not a problem for the government to tackle alone, she said, "which is why we are coordinating action across government, the food and fitness industries, retailers, through the voluntary and public sectors to target action where it can be most effective".
Annette Brooke, Liberal Democrat spokeswoman for children and families, said: "We need a named government minister to coordinate urgent action across departments to tackle this dangerously spiralling problem. We would also ask the children's commissioner to provide independent annual progress reports on this vital issue."
Andrew Lansley, the Conservative health spokesman, said: "This report suggests that the government is thrashing about with a series of loosely connected initiatives in the hope of it amounting to a strategy."
