The NOF congratulates Alan Johnson on his appointment as Secretary of State for Health and particularly welcomes his commitment to restoring the faith of NHS staff in the future of the NHS. NOF will be responding to the call to participate in his review of the NHS, one of whosze challenges in the next 10 years will be spent in yackling obesity.  NOF fears the forthcoming Foresight Report on Obesity [schedduled for October publication] which is likely to show that obesity is forever escalating.

NOF additionally welcomes the appointment of Ed Balls to lead the new government Department of Children, Schools and Families [DCSF] which will take now take the lead responsibility for children’s health in genera; and embrace childhood obesity in particular.  It will probably be a week or two before the DCSF strategy to halty it will be announced since it is not yet clear which of Mr Balls’ ministerial team will oversee its day-to-day delivery.

 

Whoever it is, it is crucial that [s]he shouldn’t spend the Summer holidaying but should be driving the social marketing strategy that the DH promised months ago would finally solve the epidemic.  The Government has now only 2½ years to achieve its aim to halt the year-on-year rise of obesity in England in children under-11 by 2010 and, if it fails, will have to go to the county admitting yet another target defeat.  NOF takes no joy whatsoever in the fact that this may be too late to achieve the target anyway since the next qualitative report on obesity due in the Autumn is very likely to show that obesity levels will escalate for many years to come.  A bold option that the DCSF might get away with is to shift its target date to settle childhood obesity to 2015, a date seen as being more realistic by both the World Health Organisation and the European Union.

If the Brown administration is truly to be a government of all the talents, the NOF trusts that the DCSF will seriously listen to every organisation, regardless of political persuasion, which constructively helps to alter the obesogenic society in which we now live to an environment in which every citizen can lead and enjoy a healthy lifestyle.   The NOF is such an organisation.   We would remind the reader that to-day should not only have been lauded as a landmark in the fight to curb smoking but also a red-letter day in the fight to ban unhealthy foods being promoted to children.   The acceptance that the food industry can still continue to target children with less than healthy food, particularly before the 9pm TV watershed illustrates the lack of resolve of the Blair administration.  It is a weakness that Mr Balls and company must overcome if they are to make a permanent improvement in children’s health.