Don’t let weight loss jabs distract us from giving children a healthy start

14 May 2025, 11:47 | Updated: 14 May 2025, 11:49

Weight loss drugs can play a role in supporting people already living with obesity, however it is vitally important that we don’t just focus on obesity treatment, especially for children.

Instead, we need to take a holistic approach that includes investment in prevention throughout someone's life, ensuring that we also address the causes of obesity and ensure access to nutritious diets for all.

The Food Foundation has published a report today, Boosting Early Years Nutrition to support a healthy childhood, which clearly demonstrates the barriers faced by parents in providing a healthy diet for their children from a young age. It highlights the stark inequalities that already exist when children start school. The most deprived children are twice as likely to have obesity and dental decay, while also consuming less fruit, vegetables, fibre and other micronutrients. 

A poor diet at a young age can hinder health, growth, development and, over time, increase the risk of disease, widening health inequalities and placing a greater burden on the NHS. While obesity is one aspect of this, we also need to ensure children are eating a balanced diet, with the micronutrients needed to stay healthy, and giving them the best chance to develop and learn.

Healthier foods are more than twice as expensive per calorie as less healthy foods, with healthier food increasing in price at twice the rate in the past two years. This means that nutritious meals are out of reach for many low-income households. In fact, of the most deprived fifth of households, those with children would need to spend an unrealistic 70% of their disposable income just to afford the Eatwell Guide, the government-recommended healthy diet.

At the same time, the food industry is geared towards profiting from selling foods that are bad for our health. Tragically this begins even with marketing of food for the youngest children. Our research found from a study of packaging of toddler and baby snacks that products had an average of 20 marketing claims per packet, often creating a health halo even if products were high in sugar.

These problems continue as children get older. For example, a quarter of places to buy food in England are fast food outlets and over a third (37%) of supermarket promotions on food and drinks are for unhealthy items, and a third of food marketing spend is on confectionary, snacks and soft drinks. By contrast just 2% of marketing is on fruit and vegetables.

If we are serious about realising the government’s ambition of raising ‘the healthiest generation of children ever’ and giving all children ‘the best start in life’, investment in prevention and shifting the incentives in our food system is a must. Of course, for some children, evidence-based support for weight management will be important, but unless we also focus on improving the environments we live in and ensuring we support good nutrition from birth, through school, and into adulthood, we are setting our children up to fail.

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Dr Hannah Brinsden is Head of Policy and Advocacy at The Food Foundation.

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