Extracts from Welsh Assembly: Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services - Mar 13

Thursday, 14 March 2019 07:24

Obesity amongst Children and Young People Siân Gwenllian AM: Will the Minister make a statement on Welsh Government efforts to tackle obesity amongst children and young people? Vaughan Gething AM (Minister for Health and Social Services): Thank you. We are consulting on our new 'Healthy Weight:...Request free trial

Obesity amongst Children and Young People

Siân Gwenllian AM: Will the Minister make a statement on Welsh Government efforts to tackle obesity amongst children and young people?

Vaughan Gething AM (Minister for Health and Social Services): Thank you. We are consulting on our new 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' strategy. This will set out our long-term aims to reduce and prevent obesity across Wales. We currently have a range of preventative policies, funding and legislation, such as the Daily Mile, active travel and an obesity pathway.

Siân Gwenllian AM: As you’ll know, one in four children of four and five years of age are either overweight or obese. England and Scotland have set targets to halve obesity among children and young people by 2030. Why doesn’t the Welsh Government have a target? As with tackling poverty, without a target it’s impossible to see how the future should look. There is no clear aim to be delivered and no means of monitoring action in order to ensure that it does lead to the correct outcomes. Once again, Labour is avoiding taking responsibility in an important area. Will you set a target?

Vaughan Gething AM: I understand the debate around targets perfectly well. The challenge, though, is that for the targets that England and Scotland have set, there isn't an evidence base that underpins those targets. I've not met a single public health professional who has been prepared to look me in the face and say that the targets make sense and they think they're going to reach them. The last thing I want to do is to set a series of aspirational targets that we can't actually achieve. I'm interested in how we actually make a real difference in turning back the tide. We've seen a leveling off in the levels of overweight and obese children, but the challenge is not to say we've leveled them off but actually how we see the curve going backwards again. That is the challenge that we're consulting on in the 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' strategy.

But, crucially, this isn't simply about the Government saying, 'You can and you must', because actually we need to work alongside people, with families, to see children in their context and the different influences around them—things like food labelling and food advertising, what goes into the food and drink that people have—as well as having that conversation in a way that isn't judgmental. Part of my real fear is that if you say to parents,'You are responsible for the weight and size of your child', then that actually will turn into a judgmental conversation and will turn people away from where we actually want them to be—to help people to make different choices.

I am not convinced—not just me, but neither is our chief medical officer convinced—that actually setting targets, as you've suggested we should do, is the right thing to do for the strategy. I will of course be accountable to this place for not just having a strategy in place after consultation, but actually whether we are making the sort of difference that I know that every Member in this room would want us to.

Paul Davies AM (Leader of the Opposition): Minister, I'm sure you'll be aware that Hywel Dda Local Health Board's latest Public Health Wales statistics show that an alarming 12.5 per cent of four to five-year-olds are obese, which is higher than the Welsh average and the second highest health board in the whole of Wales. Once children are obese, they are at real risk of getting even more obese as they get older, and we need to reverse this trend. I appreciate that individual health boards are responsible for introducing specific measures to tackle obesity, but it is important that the Welsh Government drives forward this agenda. So, given that obesity statistics are actually increasing, what are you now doing differently as a Government to tackle this very serious issue?

Vaughan Gething AM: We have a range of different measures in place. I described some of them in answer to the question. This isn't simply a matter for the health service. It is about health and health outcomes. For example, the Daily Mile is not something that the health service itself directly delivers, but it is working in partnership with schools about different forms of activity. Other schools won't have a Daily Mile, but they will have a different form of regular physical activity within the school.

You're right about the pattern for life that is set in our earliest years, both in the learning and the example that comes before engaging in school, as well as in particular the lessons in life and the patterns for life that are set at the end of primary education. So the 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' consultation will look again at an evidence base. We looked at, for example, Holland, where there has been leadership and there's been a turnaround in some contexts, to see how we apply that successfully here.

Actually, the work that I've seen at Bishop Childs school—they attended the launch of the 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' consultation—does demonstrate that it is possible to do something, but the challenge is how consistently we're able to do that, and not just in Hywel Dda but right across the country. Hywel Dda may have the second highest rate of obese children, but, in statistical terms, there isn't a significant difference. You actually see the difference in the socioeconomic status of where our children are, and that is a big challenge for us in every part of the country.

Active Travel

Huw Irranca-Davies AM: What recent discussions has the Minister had with other Government ministers on the role of active travel in promoting health and wellbeing for children and young people? OAQ53559

Vaughan Gething AM: Thank you for that question. The Cabinet has discussed our 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' strategy, which is currently out for consultation, to agree eight priority areas on physical activity. I've since established a cross-Government implementation board; the first meeting that took place was attended by me and my colleague Dafydd Elis-Thomas. There are a range of programmes, such as the Daily Mile, the Healthy and Active Fund and active travel to school, which support delivery of our ambitions.

Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, thank you very much for that answer, Minister. I'm pleased that you've already—. You've pre-empted my question, because part of the delivery of the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013—brought through with laudable ambitions by my colleague John Griffiths here, before my time—sets out that Wales would become the country where it was the most natural thing to walk and cycle, it was the most natural way to get about. But we held a debate only last week where we showed the distance that there is between that laudable aim and actually the reality on the ground, and a lot of this is to do with cross-Government working. So, could I have that commitment on record from the Minister that he will continue to work with other Government Ministers, including the Minister for Education, to ensure that active travel to and from schools becomes a key part of the Public Health Wales administered healthy schools programme? This will not eat into schools' time, into any curriculum delivery, and it can be done cheaply and well, as we saw only recently at the cross-party group on active travel, delivered in Cardiff itself. So, would he commit to that cross-Government working with the Minister for Education to really embed it within the healthy schools programme?

Vaughan Gething AM: Yes, I'm more than happy to continue the work that I and Dafydd Elis-Thomas have started with a range of Ministers with an interest. And, of course, the Minister for Education has a specific role and remit over what takes place within the school. There's a challenge about not just what takes place in the curriculum, but the broader culture within that school, but—obviously, with our colleague the Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport in particular—to understand how we get children to and from the school as well. Now, it isn't just about travel in the school day, it is also work, for example, on our response to the 20's Plenty for Us campaign as well—the evidence that exists about whether speed limits make a difference about people's willingness to travel to school and undertake other forms of getting to and from school, their place of work and moving around socially as well. So, there's a wide range of activity that I'm interested in to fundamentally change the way that we move and the way that we actually have health outcomes here in Wales as well.