Collaboration is key to alleviating the obesity crisis
Slimming World welcomes the publication of Cancer Research UK’s report Paying the price: new evidence on the link between price promotions, purchasing of less healthy food and drink, and overweight and obesity in Great Britain.
Slimming World supports today’s CRUK report as it has revealed the link between overweight and obesity and promotional purchasing; shoppers who buy more of their food and drink on promotion purchase more items high in fat, salt or sugar, and are more likely to be overweight or obese.
Slimming World’s Director of External Affairs, Jenny Caven, has been invited to speak at tonight’s All Party Parliamentary Group for a Fit and Healthy Childhood on Management of Obesity in Children and Young People, to discuss the need to educate and empower both children and families to make healthier choices.
Ahead of speaking Jenny says: “Today’s report from CRUK mirrors our own research that identified the huge impact that upselling and price promotion has on obesity. It shows the importance of collaboration to address the national scandal of obesity particularly in relation to children and families.
There are now more than four million children in England alone whose lives are blighted by obesity.
“This obesity crisis is not something that can be solved by just the public sector or by government legislation. It needs a concerted, united effort across every sector of society. We need to collaborate across sectors and concentrate our efforts to tackle and prevent rising obesity, take a family approach to every solution and make every contact count.”
Phil Royal from the Secretariat of the APPG for a Fit and Healthy Childhood says: “We’re delighted to have Jenny Caven addressing the group on the day this important research from CRUK is released. Slimming World and CRUK are both important contributors to this group whose strength is in its scope and range of public, voluntary and private sector members.”
Price promotion is significantly linked to upselling, and Slimming World’s own research with the Royal Society of Public Health in 2017 showed that nearly 80% of the general public surveyed had experienced being upsold to at least once in a week – persuaded to buy food or drink additional or more expensive than they otherwise would have bought.