Report of the Director of Population Health and Consultant in Public Health

This report provides an introduction to the draft Manchester Healthy Weight Strategy 2020-2025, which will take a whole system, partnership approach to tackling obesity in the city. The strategy has been developed across four key themes; Food & Culture, Physical Activity, Environment & Neighbourhoods and Support & Prevention, it has been informed by a wide variety of stakeholders, and supports the Public Health England (PHE) guidance ‘Reducing obesity is everybody’s business’ (PHE 2018).

The Committee considered the report of the Director of Population Health and Consultant in Public Health that provided an introduction to the draft Manchester Healthy Weight Strategy 2020-2025, which would take a whole system, partnership approach to tackling obesity in the city.

Officers referred to the main points of the report which were: -

·         The strategy had been developed across four key themes; Food & Culture, Physical Activity, Environment & Neighbourhoods and Support & Prevention;

·         The strategy had been informed by a wide variety of stakeholders, and supported the Public Health England (PHE) guidance ‘Reducing obesity was everybody’s business’ (PHE 2018); and

·         Following comments by the Health Scrutiny Committee and the Manchester Patient and Professionals Advisory Group the final draft of the Strategy would be produced for the Health and Wellbeing Board.

Some of the key points that arose from the Committee’s discussions were: -

·         The maps provided within the report referred to previous ward boundaries;

·         Mental health and its relationship to healthy weight needed to be more explicit within the report;

·         Recognising that physical activity amongst children had reduced and this needed to be addressed and noting the influence technology had and how children played;

·         The food industry needed to be challenged to take responsibility, noting that processed food was cheaper than eating healthier;

·         Noting that food deserts existed in certain areas that reduced options and access to healthier food choices; and

·         Schools and hospitals should be deterred from providing vending machines that contained unhealthy food.

The Executive Member for Adults, Health and Well Being welcomed the comments from the Committee and stated that these would be taken into consideration before the final strategy was produced. She stated that the issue of healthy weight was not just a health issue and a holistic response was required. She stated that consideration needed to be given to the wider determinants of health and all partners needed to use their levers and policies to influence behaviour change. She said that Manchester, for example should seek to use its powers through licensing and planning policy to influence behaviour change.

In response to the comments from Members, officers stated that the maps in the report would be reviewed to ensure they were correct. The Consultant in Public Health stated that relationships between healthy weight and mental health was understood and was contained within the report, however following the comments this would be reviewed to ensure this was appropriately addressed and presented within the final report.

The Commissioning Manager acknowledged the comments regarding young children being overweight and stated that they were working with Manchester Active to increase participation in physical activity amongst children and younger people. He further described that the Healthy Schools Teams had worked with catering teams within schools to ensure healthy food options were available to children and there were no vending machines in schools.

The Commissioning Manager acknowledged the challenge presented by the food industry and supported the comment from the Executive Member for Adults, Health and Well Being in using all local levers available, in particular planning to influence behaviour change. He described that examples of good practice from other authorities to promote a healthy relationship with food were to be utilised and consideration would be given as to how this city wide strategy could connect into other services delivered in local neighbourhoods.

Decision

To note the report.