Zoe Williams is right to call out the lack of affordable healthy food for people living on the lowest incomes, as well as the need to stop preaching healthy eating and instead address the root causes, including the way our food industry operates (The way to tackle obesity in the UK is to make healthy food affordable. But the government won’t admit it, 30 June). But it’s not as simple as demanding more price cuts, which could end up falling even harder on the very low-wage workers and farmers struggling to survive, rather than the big food profiteers she is calling out.
Williams points to Hungary as an example, where there is also an additional levy on production and sales of unhealthy food and drink, with the money raised supporting nurses’ wages and public health interventions. Similar models could be deployed in the UK to get big food companies to change their recipes while subsidising fruit and vegetable access via school meals, early years feeding support or community initiatives. Let’s hope the forthcoming food strategy will adopt some of these more ambitious solutions.
Barbara Crowther
Manager, Children’s Food Campaign, Sustain
Zoe Williams’ analysis of the links between obesity and big food is spot on. Another turn in the screw I’ve experienced is that, at least in the case of the two excellent local food banks where I have volunteered, a large proportion of the food distributed – pasta, bottled sauces, biscuits and cakes, white bread – comes from big supermarket chains. Many service users tended to shun healthier choices. I suspected this was through lack of the surplus hope, energy and curiosity required to shift from habitual eating patterns and addictions. As, with far less excuse, I find it hard to limit my intake of chocolate and wine.
Eithne Dodwell
Bradford