Children should be able to grow up in an environment which enables them to be healthy. In the last 30 years, our food environment has changed. There are a lot more processed and packaged foods now which are high in sugar, fat, and salt and which are very tasty, relatively cheap and often aggressively marketed. This means that it can be easy to consume more sugar and fat than we need, and children are now much more at risk of being malnourished, overweight or obese. Sugary drinks in particular can increase these risks.
Changing our food environment and changing the types of food and drinks we consume are key to improving health, especially for children. This means that healthy foods and drinks need to be the convenient, easy and affordable choice.
Everyone has a role to play in helping to create a healthy food environment in the places we live, learn, work and play. Achieving this will take the collective effort of consumers, schools, pre-schools, businesses, councils, the food industry, food producers, food retailers, government, supermarkets, sports organisations, media and so on.
Updated 04 Dec, 2023