Britain’s obesity and health crises will not be solved until the Government regulates to end the “commercial incentive” for food firms to sell as much unhealthy food as they can.

That’s view of the former national Food Tsar and entrepreneur Henry Dimbleby, in comments made in an interview for the BBC’s Today Programme (14 April episode).  

Dimbleby was answering questions about new research by Bristol University which shows that the proportion of adolescents living with overweight and obesity in England increased by 50% between 2008 and 2023. The Today programme’s Jonny Dymond asked him where he thought blame should be apportioned for the rise. Dimbleby told him: “In the independent review I did for the government – the National Food Strategy – back in 2021, we pointed out very clearly that the problem is a commercial one. We have an appetite that evolved when calories were scarce, and it gives great pleasure to eating certain types of food, particularly those containing high levels of sugar and fat and that have certain flavour profiles. That is the food that now dominates not only the commercial environment, but our hospitals and our schools. So unless you break that commercial incentive, we’re not going to solve this problem.”

“As we collected our evidence we had companies saying, we can’t do this on our own, these foods are simply so profitable that we need regulation.”

Dimbleby cited research from the Institute of Fiscal studies that estimates the cost of obesity to the UK at around £100 billion. “We are at an interesting moment. The government says it wants to fix the NHS, it wants to fix productivity The question is, will they grasp the nettle and do something about it – and be one of the first western countries to reverse obesity in society and in children. There is a debate about whether it is possible to rewire the entire NHS and tackle public health as well. Is that too much politically? But you really have to tackle both because you can’t make the NHS efficient enough to deal with the sheer number of sick bodies that are thrown at it due to bad diet.”

Dimbleby is adamant that the time for action is now. He also says the ‘nanny state’ argument, often used as an objection to Government intervention in this area, should just be ignored. “As we collected our evidence we had companies saying, we can’t do this on our own, these foods are simply so profitable that we need regulation. And voters don’t actually believe that this is a real  objection or problem. There are areas that people don’t want the government to get involved with, and meat eating is one of them, but in many areas people actively want intervention.”

Dimbleby says that when his team interviewed 20 former Prime Ministers and Health Secretaries from across the political divide, the politicians told them “the problem was within their parties, not within wider society”. He says industry and government “need to work together and need to do it this year”. 

He also believes a a real opportunity for the food industry emerging. “Whereas in the past, companies who tried to be healthy had a very niche market targeting richer consumers, there is now money to be made in selling healthier food to a much larger part of the population. The seriousness of the situation is creating the opportunity. So I think 2025 could be a pivotal year if the government really gets a grip on this.”