The UK is facing an obesity crisis that is taking a heavy toll on children's health. In 2023 to 2024, more than one in five children in Year 6 were living with obesity, and rates are even higher in the most deprived communities. Advertising plays a well-documented role in shaping what children eat.
The Local Health and Global Profits (LHGP) research consortium has responded to the Department of Health and Social Care's open consultation on applying the new Nutrient Profiling Model to advertising and promotions restrictions. The consultation proposes replacing the nutrient profiling model (NPM) that currently underpins restrictions on advertising less healthy food and drink with the updated UK NPM 2018, which better reflects current dietary science.
LHGP supports this update and welcomes the government's ambition to bring advertising restrictions in line with the latest evidence. However, its response makes clear that updating the NPM is only one part of what is needed to genuinely protect children from harmful commercial influence.
Implementation must be protected from industry influence
It is well established that food and other health-harming industries seek to influence the science underpinning regulation. Common tactics include playing down the scale of harm, emphasising individual responsibility over systemic action, and promoting ineffective alternatives such as voluntary self-regulation. Case study evidence from the food industry, among others, documents the damage these efforts cause to public health research and policy progress.
LHGP urges the government to be alert to these dynamics as it moves to implement the updated NPM. Industry actors have strong commercial incentives to extend the implementation timeline or weaken the policy's scope. Robust governance and transparency mechanisms must be in place to ensure that this does not happen.
Public support for stronger action
Voters across all parties want bolder government action on health: 81% of the public believe food and drink companies put profit ahead of public health, and 84% of adults think the food and drinks industry bears a great or fair amount of responsibility for public health outcomes. The government has a clear mandate, and a strong evidence base, to act.
Dr Nason Maani, LHGP Deputy Director and Senior Lecturer in Inequalities and Global Health Policy, University of Edinburgh, says: "Updating the nutrient profiling model is a sensible and necessary step, and we support it, but the government must also seize the opportunity to expand the scope of these restrictions and ensure the policy is properly insulated from industry lobbying. The public wants bold action, the evidence supports it, and the stakes for children's health could not be higher."