In an open letter to the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, a coalition of experts and charities led by the Obesity Health Alliance (OHA) is urging the government to stick to its obesity prevention guns as the food inflation crisis continues to drive up the cost of healthy food.
The letter comes on the back of the Food Foundation’s Broken Plate 2026 report, released yesterday, which found that the poorest fifth of families with children would need to spend as much as 85% of their disposable income to afford a healthy diet, driving many towards cheaper, and often more readily available, fast food options.
As such, the coalition of 64 leading health organisations and experts from the medical community that have put their name to the letter is cautioning Downing Street against getting dragged into “cost-of-living politics” by softening its stance against HFSS foods as grocery inflation bites.
In its letter, the alliance asks the government to take three immediate steps:
- publish a formal consultation on mandatory health reporting before the summer recess, with a commitment to implementation next year across all relevant sectors
- introduce legislation for the Healthy Food Standard - including mandatory reporting and mandatory health targets - within this Parliament
- apply the updated Nutrient Profiling Model (NPM) to advertising and promotions restrictions, with a clear and defensible mechanism for implementation, ensuring this work does not delay progress on the Healthy Food Standard
If the Labour government rows back on its existing obesity strategy, which aims to prevent the problem at the source instead of simply treating its symptoms, health secretary Wes Streeting’s vaunted NHS 10-year health plan could be in jeopardy before it has even got off the ground.
Weakening public health policy would be a false economy, the letter warns, as the worst-off would end up costing the NHS further down the line through a worsening of the obesity epidemic.
“The Government’s prevention moonshot risks failing before launch if the very policies needed to deliver it are watered down before they even begin,” said Katharine Jenner, executive director of the OHA.
“Families are under huge financial pressure, but blaming health regulation for rising food prices is a distraction. There is no evidence these measures would push up prices - and no evidence that scrapping them would make food cheaper.”
She continued: “Weakening these measures now would be a false economy. It won’t make food cheaper, but it will drive up the long-term costs of preventable illness - from various cancers, heart disease and Type 2 diabetes to dental decay - for families and for the NHS.
“This is a test of whether prevention is a serious plan or just a slogan. Ministers must stand firm, resist pressure to weaken these measures, and deliver on their promise to protect children’s health.”
The letter comes amid growing concern that key measures promised last year could be delayed or weakened - including applying the updated NPM to advertising and promotions restrictions, and introducing a world-leading Healthy Food Standard, which would require large food businesses to report on and improve the healthiness of their sales.
According to government analysis, applying the updated NPM could deliver as much as £36.9 billion in health and economic benefits over 25 years, reducing childhood obesity by 110,000 cases and adult obesity by 520,000 cases.
By contrast, the open letter says, the total implementation cost to industry over the same period is estimated to be less than £3 billion.
The letter adds that the proposed mandatory Healthy Food Standard would help to create a level playing field for all large food businesses and would result in around £17 billion in annual cost savings to society, including saving the NHS £2 billion a year.
The organisations emphasise that there is no evidence that either policy would increase prices for consumers, and, importantly, no evidence that removing them would reduce prices.
Anna Taylor, executive director of the Food Foundation, added: “Our Broken Plate report, published this week, shows that the price gap between healthier and less healthy food is the widest it’s been in over a decade, and that the poorest families with children now need to spend 85% of their disposable income on a healthy diet.
“It is clear that the government’s priority needs to be on protecting people’s ability to afford healthy food. Stalling policies on mandatory reporting of healthy sales and the updated Nutrient Profiling Model isn’t going to address people’s ability to access and afford healthy food. It’ll only exacerbate health and dietary inequalities and put further pressure on the NHS.”
Concluding, she said: “So it’s vital that we don’t see food price rises as a reason to soft-pedal on some of those important steps which we need to be making to shift the food system to actually support public health.”
