Between 2006 and 2010 I ran the @Childrensfood campaigning to improve children’s diets with great colleagues like @Kath_Dalmeny and @jackieschneider. We were calling for things like protecting kids from junk food ads, improving food labelling, better school food etc 1/5

We, rightly, warned of a ticking time bomb of childhood obesity. Tragically, Covid has highlighted the health impact of this, but it’s felt in a range of slower burn crisies as well. 2/5

We made some progress under the then Labour Government. New restrictions were introduced on junk food marketing and big improvements were made to school food, but it was a hard fight in the teeth of massive industry lobbying and the new measures were welcome but insufficient. 3/5

But we were moving in the right direction. In 2010 this completely changed as the new Tory and Lib Dem government seemed to buy food industry arguments about voluntary action and the ‘nanny states hook, line and sinker and all progress stopped. 4/5

So I’m genuinely delighted that, due to Covid, this Government is proposing a lot of the measures we were calling for 14 years ago and more. The tragedy is that had these been introduced then, or progress not reversed in 2010, we’d have a lot happier and healthier country now.