Obesity strategy delayed but Wollaston hopes for improvements
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- Published: Wednesday, 07 September 2016 07:40
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The Government’s child obesity strategy, including oral health, has been put on ice after delays of almost a year. However Health Committee chair, Sarah Wollaston MP says she hopes to use her Committee’s influence to strengthen before it is published in the autumn.
The long-delayed anti-obesity strategy has been postponed until autumn, according to The Times. The childhood obesity strategy was originally expected in December but was put back to the spring and then the summer amid rows over the mooted tax on sugary drinks. The Department of Health now says that it will be published “in due course”. A department spokesman told the paper: “We have said before it was going to be in the summer but we have never had a confirmed date for it.”
Doctors said that it was unacceptable that plans to fight child obesity had been delayed again. Parveen Kumar, chairwoman of the British Medical Association’s board of science, said: “Every day that it is delayed, is a day that the government is letting our children down.” A spokeswoman for the Obesity Health Alliance of charities and medical royal colleges said: “For the sake of our children’s health, it’s vital we tackle the obesity epidemic which is jeopardising their future wellbeing.”
Dr Sarah Wollaston said on her Twitter page (@sarahwollaston): “Obesity in most disadvantaged is rising and inequality gap is widening, without a really effective strategy we won’t tackle it. I hope to strengthen (the obesity strategy) in the light of (the prime minister’s) determination to tackle health inequality.
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