To ensure the Scottish public are making healthy choices when it comes to food, the Scottish government has released a Diet and Healthy Weight Delivery Plan.
The plan includes measures to reduce diet-related health inequalities, and ensures that the food environment in Scotland supports healthier choices. Restrictions will be placed on the marketing and promotion of goods that are high in fat, sugar or salt, and have little or no essential nutrients.
Children will be encouraged to maintain a well-balanced, nutritional diet, and training will be provided for frontline staff in services working with families, parents and children. The Scottish government said: “Nearly one in three children in Scotland are at risk of being overweight or obese.”
Scotland’s public health minister Joe Fitzpatrick said: “We’ve pledged to halve childhood obesity by 2030 and that ambition is at the heart of our delivery plan. I am proud to publish it at the start of National Childhood Obesity Week.”
Scottish people will also gain wider access to effective weight management services, with particular focus on those with type-2 diabetes. The Scottish government said: “[We] will invest £42 million over five years to establish supported weight management interventions as a core part of treatment services for people with, or at risk of, type-2 diabetes. This will be supported by a type-2 diabetes prevention, early detection and early intervention framework, to be published in summer 2018.”
The government also pledges to support overweight or obese people from deprived communities, and will continue to fund health boards to do so.
Fitzpatrick continued: “I want everyone, across all sectors including government, citizens, the public and third sectors and businesses to play their part in achieving our bold vision to significantly reduce health inequalities.”
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