Children's Nutrition Action Plan. Policy recommendations to improve children's diets and health

Children's Nutrition Action Plan. Policy recommendations to improve children's diets and health - 64pp, £10, published by The Food Commission 2001. Now only available as download (500KB)

Introduction
Contents

Introduction

Food and nutrition policies are very much in the news these days. Food policies across Europe have been the attention of much media concern, not just over agriculture and food supply policies, BSE and dioxin in our food supplies, but in a quieter way there has been mounting concern over European rates of heart disease and cancer, and rising incidence of obesity. The World Health Organisation's nutrition office for the European Region has launched a four-year Food and Nutrition Action Plan which considers some of the issues we look at in this document. The UK Department of Health has launched a series of policy documents on public health policy which include food, diet and nutrition concerns. Also, the recently launched UK Food Standards Agency is also developing a nutrition policy.

Children's food is a key element of food policies for several good reasons. For a start, what children eat not only affects their health at the time, but will make a significant difference to their later health. For instance, after around the age of four, children who are overweight are increasingly likely to be overweight or obese as adults. Before they reach their teens, children can show the first signs of cardiovascular disease in the tissues of their arterial walls. By this age, girls have already begun to lay down the nutritional base for their future pregnancies, which in turn will affect the foetus and long-term health of their children. Nutrition in childhood is therefore of importance for public health and the costs to our health services for years to come.

Children are less able to make decisions about their own best interests than are well-informed adults. The regulation of people's free choice about the foods they eat is often attacked as 'nannyism' but this fails to apply when it comes to children. We acknowledge the need to protect children through social controls - we ban the advertising of alcohol and tobacco to children, and we prohibit children from buying drink and cigarettes until they are considered old enough to know what they are doing. But with food, society has been less assertive and has allowed the free-choice and free-market arguments to prevail.

This state of affairs is doing our children no good. The present document reviews some
of the main issues that concern children's food and nutrition, and looks at possible interventions or targets that might be constructed, to help us protect children's health in the future and improve what children are eating.

Contents

Part 1
Children's Nutrition
Report on current issues from the round-table meeting

Part 2
Targets and Interventions
Note on nutrition policies and the role of central government
Issues, targets and interventions

1. Nutrition for babies and pre-school children
Issues to be addressed:
Nutrition before and during pregnancy
Breast and bottle feeding
Infant nutrition
Targets and interventions
Nutrition before and during pregnancy
Breast and bottle feeding
Infant nutrition

2. Nutrition in school-age children
Issues to be addressed:
What school-age children are eating
Health outcomes in childhood and adulthood
Children's dental health
Targets and interventions:
Whole-school nutrition policies
Other policy measures for improving health in school-age children

3. Food manufacturing, retailing and marketing
Issues to be addressed:
Advertising and marketing food to children
Targets and interventions:
Actions currently being taken by retailers to encourage healthy eating
Other policy measures to improve the manufacturing, retailing and
marketing of food to children

4. References