According to a report in yesterday’s Observer, the government will this week admit that the 5 A DAY message is failing to hit home with enough UK consumers.
The multi-million pound campaign to encourage consumers to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day has “flopped”, said the newspaper.
The report, by the government’s Strategy Unit says poor diet kills 69,400 Britons every year - 10 per cent of all deaths. Some 42,200 of those are directly linked to a lack of fruit and vegetables.
Josephine Querido, of Cancer Research UK, said that consuming five portions of fruit and vegetables a day would reduce the risk of developing cancers connected with the digestive system such as mouth, foodpipe and stomach cancers.
But Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation, as saying: “People haven't taken the five-a-day message on board the way the government would have wished. That's a failure of society, of the population, to take on board the importance of a healthy diet. We would like to see people reaching for an apple, orange or pear rather than for a biscuit, but they don't do that. A large number of people are putting themselves at risk because of their poor diet.”
Professor Mike Rayner, director of the Health Promotion Research Group at Oxford University, told the Observer: “It's time for the government to impose VAT on unhealthy foods, such as cakes, biscuits, sausage rolls, meat pies and even butter, and use the money to cut the cost of fruit, vegetables, bread and pasta.”
Rayner also called for a ban on unhealthy food from vending machines in hospitals and leisure centres.
However, an encouraging 44 per cent of schoolchildren in England now consume five portions daily, which is significantly higher than the 27 per cent in 2004. This indicates that a switch by English schools to more nutritious lunch offers in autumn 2006 and the School Fruit & Vegetable Scheme are working.
No comments yet