How to fix our broken food system

Right now in the UK, around two-thirds of all adults are living with excess weight and obesity. This is not just a crisis for adults - more than one in 5 primary school-aged children in England are now living with it.

A year ago, the government set out a ‘moonshot’ to end the obesity epidemic in the 10 Year Health Plan for England. However, successive governments have announced almost 700 initiatives to tackle obesity in the last 30 years - in that time, rates have doubled. 

So why has nothing worked and what would it actually take to turn the tide?

In this episode of the Policy Fix podcast from Nesta, host Joe Owen is joined by Dr Dolly van Tulleken, an obesity and food policy expert and visiting researcher at Cambridge University, and Hugo Harper, director of Nesta’s Healthy Life Mission, which aims to halve obesity in the UK by 2030.

Together they unpack the food environment that shapes what we eat, why so many policies get watered down or delayed and what the evidence really says works. They dig into the junk food advertising ban and its loopholes, the sugar tax, GLP-1 weight loss drugs, the new healthy food standard and the lessons from tobacco control. The conclusion is hopeful: with the right mix of solutions, halving obesity is possible.

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