Blueprint for Health and Wellbeing

11th January 2012, 3:44pm

A bold new initiative to give a collective voice to caterers in the public sector has been launched after a successful first meeting of industry leaders. David Foad reports

More than 80 public sector foodservice industry leaders gathered for the inaugural event at the QEII Centre on December 1 – within sight of the Houses of Parliament.

The main topic on the agenda was health and nutrition. In particular, caterers were concerned about lack of Government support for existing and planned healthy eating initiatives.

Every speaker highlighted the increasing incidence in the UK of obesity in both adults and children and the clear link to a number of major health problems. The message came through loud and clear: They just don't get it.

By the end of the day delegates had identified three key aims and three credible action points.

The aims are: Protected mealtimes; Lifetime nutritional standards; and The appointment of a Government Health & Wellbeing 'Tsar'.

The action points are: Collect a plausible evidence base from existing research linking diet and health; Create a public sector catering lobbying voice; and Investigate research into how best to get people to change their eating habits.

These proposals are just the starting point. The aim now is to get feedback from those who took part in December 1st's event and other key public sector catering stakeholders to draw up PS100's definitive aims and actions.

But why is there even a need for PS100? Delegates to the launch event were agreed about the scale of the threat. What could be more important to us than our health and that of our children?

In other words, how have we arrived at the situation today that the UK is the fattest nation in Europe?

We know this because data published by Eurostat in November showed nearly a quarter of women in this country – that's 23.9% - were recorded as obese in 2008/9, more than in any other country.

And before the men suck in their tummies and look to tighten their belts a notch in self-congratulation, the same survey showed over 22% of them were also classed as obese.

These figures for adults alone should be enough to galvanise the country, but the grim news doesn't end there. The Black Review, written in 2008 by Professor Dame Carol Black, currently the national director for health and work, found significant levels of obesity in our children too: One in six boys and one in seven girls aged 2-15 were found to be obese.

What conclusions did she reach in her report? It's worth recalling her words: "This will be an increasing trend over the coming years unless early interventions are put in place to steer children away from the poor choices that lead to their becoming overweight.

She went on: "Schools, colleges, vocational and higher education institutions are important settings for prevention initiatives reaching children and young people, and improving their life chances."

So she sees a growing problem, but also identifies, in education catering, an important weapon in the fi ght against it.

If those numbers don't come down or, at the very least stop increasing, then things don't look too bright for our children and grandchildren.

The British medical publication, The Lancet, published a series of articles this summer that said that if current trends continue nearly half of UK men could be obese by 2030 and four in 10 women will be similarly overweight.

That translates into 26 million obese people in the country - a rise of 73% over the current 15 million.

And all the evidence points to the fact they won't be fat and jolly; they'll be tired, ill and unlikely to be working. There is a huge amount of evidence linking obesity to increased risk for a range of conditions, including high blood pressure, gallstones, cancer and, most clearly, Type 2 diabetes.

If the challenges are plain to see, what is equally clear is the role for both catering operators and suppliers in the public sector in providing a solution.

First of the speakers at the Public Sector 100 event was LACA Deputy Chair Anne Bull, who offered a stark fi gure to illustrate the cost of dealing with these problems in the future. She said that by 2050 half of the NHS budget, an estimated £51 billion, will be spent treating obesity-related diseases.

The key was to start educating young children about healthy eating and provide them with good nutritious meals at school. The nutritional standards introduced recently had been a good start, but she saw two major issues that threatened the progress made over the last few year.

One was the Government's refusal to obligate new academies and free schools to comply with the standards, the second was the plan to roll up all benefits for the less well off into a single 'Universal Tax Credit' (UTC) payment.

This would include the current free school meals payments, and she doubted that families receiving the proposed UTC would necessarily use it to pay for school meals.

She concluded: "Investing in a healthy school meals service can help us all by keeping people healthier for longer."

Deputy Director of the Obesity Team at the Department of Health, Richard Cienciala said that when budgets were tight there inevitably were tensions between the economic growth agenda and the health and social care agenda and the long-term investment in people's health as against meeting their immediate health needs.

But he insisted: "At a national level there is a clear commitment to take action on health and obesity."

There was currently a £5.1bn annual cost to the NHS to treat health problems associated with excess weight, but that translated into a £16bn cost to the wider economy in dealing with the effects.

He said a credible response to this is:
• A sustained downward trend in levels of excess weight in children by 2020
• A downward trend in levels of excess weight across adults by 2020.

"Eating less is the key to weight loss. You might think it's a bit of a truism, but it's been a matter of real debate. Exercise is part of the solution, but there's not much point in encouraging that without helping people to make that difficult change to eating habits."

Ultimately, though, he believes more evidence is needed to show the benefits of a healthy diet before direct action is entertained by the Government.

His point was that in a cash-strapped environment, the question will be asked of any public spending: Show me that the investment will deliver.

Sarah Stanner of the British Nutrition Foundation offered the 'Expert View', at the same time showing that there is already a lot of good evidence out there to support the basic idea of a clear link between good nutrition and health and behaviour.

And she stressed the point that as the public sector was responsible for 6 million meals a day it offered a 'massive opportunity' to help tackle problems caused by obesity and poor nutrition.

The good news was that big advances had already been made in reducing salt and trans fatty acids.  "The UK is a leader in salt reduction; average intake is down and heading towards the 6mg daily target. And consumer demand and manufacturers working behind the scenes reduced trans fatty acids in our diet before it became a major concern."

She identified one of the major challenges facing any plan to reduce incidence of obesity.

"There's good evidence that nutrition has an impact on health and behaviour; the challenge is getting people to change their eating habits."

Claire Morris, marketing director Sodexo UK provided the Contractors' View, and with it evidence that investment in diet and exercise makes sound sense for business and society.

She said there was a relationship between activity, diet and good health, and Sodexo had found the best results came from looking at lifestyle in general and not just diet.

"People say they want more healthy options, but they don't always choose them. Part of the reason is that there is a perception that healthy food is expensive. "And simply cutting calories is not the answer, or people may just skip breakfast. Is that healthy?" she asked.

When the contractor offered its own staff deals on gym membership it cut absenteeism by an average of 2.2 days a year per employee.

"It's a matter of calories in and calories out," she added.

Sodexo's willingness to get involved in public health initiatives can be seen through its commitment to the Government's Responsibility Deal, something that also applies to Unilever Food Solutions.

James Allred, the company's marketing manager gave delegates the Suppliers' View, saying the old philosophy of growth at any cost was no longer sustainable for any company.

"We're looking to double growth, that's still important, but we also want to cut our total environmental impact by half and we have a target for social impact – to help one billion people improve their lives," he said.

Through the Food Pledges taken as part the Responsibility Deal the company is working to improve the nutritional profile of more than 4,000 products.

In particular it has already made significant reductions to the amount of saturated fat in customers' diets through its championing of Flora spread as an alternative to butter.

"It has 78% less saturated fat and offers a cost saving. Chefs have re-designed a lot of classic recipes using it. At ISS Healthcare they have removed 600kg of saturated fats by using Flora in recipes back of house."

The panel discussion with Anne Bull, deputy chair of LACA; Janice Gillan, chair of the Hospital Caterers' Association (HCA) and Karen Oliver, chair of the National Association of Care Catering (NACC) drew some really interesting ideas that helped crystallise the thoughts of many caterers present into a few clear aims for Public Sector 100 and how they might be achieved.

The idea of a protected mealtime drew support from many other sectors beyond its traditional hospital constituency.

Karen Oliver said it was also an important principle for care homes and Meals on Wheels providers to follow.

And as school heads look to squeeze the traditional lunch hour into as little as 20 minutes, delegates said it was just as important for the education sector to give pupils enough time to eat a good meal.

Simon James, managing director of Eden Foodservice, which provides meals in a number of education contracts, proposed the idea of 'lifetime' nutritional standards.

"They've done it with schools, they could just as easily at the same time have drawn up food standards to cover from cradle to grave."

The suggestion was warmly supported by other delegates, as was the proposal that the public sector needed a single point of contact when dealing with the Government on health and nutrition issues.

A health and wellbeing 'Tsar' would allow a joined up approach among the many ministries that have responsibility for the issue of public health.

How can public sector caterers effectively pursue such aims? The answer from delegates was an initial three-point plan they agreed would be the starting point for action.

This is: To collect an evidence base from all relevant existing research into health and nutrition in an attempt to present the definitive case for Government support; To create an industry lobbying voice for public sector catering; To investigate research into how people can be persuaded to change their eating habits.

David Foad, editor of Cost Sector Catering, concluded by saying: "This is just the first step in creating a lobbying voice for public sector caterers so that your expertise and influence can play a part in driving Government action and legislation towards promoting healthier lifestyles.

"You'll be hearing a lot more from us about today and the future events we've got planned – through Cost Sector Catering magazine, through its website, by e-mail and on the Public Sector100 Facebook page we're launching."

Related Articles:

• 26 Mar 2012 - Department of Health says calories to be 'capped and cut'