Snack firms will pay more to fight the flab obesity

Published on Wednesday 7 July 2010 18:22

FIRMS such as Mars, Cadbury and Coca-Cola will take on a bigger role in funding campaigns aimed at tackling soaring obesity rates, it was announced yesterday.

Health secretary Andrew Lansley said he wanted to free food and drink firms from the "burden of regulation" and would invite them to take on a greater role in public health.

Companies selling foods such as chocolate, crisps and soft drinks did not want the public to see their products as "harmful" but as something that could be incorporated into healthy diets, he said.

Talking about good food or bad food just closes companies out, he said, adding that people needed to take more responsibility for their own health.

It is "perfectly possible to eat a bag of crisps, to eat a Mars bar, to drink a carbonated soft drink" as long as it is in moderation, he said. The Change4Life campaign was launched in January 2009 with 75 million of government funding over three years.

Cadbury, Unilever, Coca-Cola, Kellogg's, Kraft, Mars, Nestle and PepsiCo have all been involved, alongside Britvic and major supermarket Tesco.

Mr Lansley told public health workers the government would be "progressively scaling back the proportion of taxpayers' money spent on Change4Life."

Private firms, local authorities and charities would be invited to fill the gap instead.

Mr Lansley said if people cared to listen to business people and companies they would see they "understand the social responsibility of people having a better lifestyle and they don't regard that as remotely inconsistent with their long-term commercial interest.

But Betty McBride, of the British Heart Foundation, said: "We wait with baited breath for the fast food merchants, chocolate bar makers and fizzy drink vendors to beat a path to the public health door."