Blog: Paying a high price for poor nutrition

by Shelagh Young, DHI Engagement Lead

We should stop treating nutrition as a private responsibility of citizens and make ensuring good public nutrition a key responsibility of governments. That’s a key message expressed at our latest Understanding Scotland Economy event in Edinburgh this week by guest speaker Pete Ritchie, Director of Nourish Scotland.

Ritchie was responding to our findings that, faced with costs of living challenges, over half of Scots are shopping based on price rather than health considerations and that 1 in 4 (24%) are buying fewer fruits and vegetables and/or are choosing foods that require no or little cooking such as pot noodles. The importance of addressing better nutrition as a systemic issue rather than a private matter of individual responsibility was underlined by our other expert panellist, Kate Elliot, of Rathbone Greenbank Investments who generously hosted this event.

Elliot pointed out that business and policymakers have a huge influence on our food choices which is why investor engagement and government action are crucially important. Elliot stressed the need for supportive policy and effective regulation to provide a “positive choice environment” of nutritious and affordable food options. Pointing to the £27 billion annual estimated costs of the health impacts of obesity alone, she also highlighted the fact that poor health in the working age population is not just a moral issue. It has a negative impact on productivity and drives up costs for business due to higher than necessary absence rates. 

Britain has a long history of blaming individuals for their own poor health. It’s 120 years since the Balfour Government created a Committee to look at why so many British people were in a poor physical state following concerns raised about the condition of many Boer War recruits. Back then we had an empire to defend and, compared with other Europeans,  our relative poor health had become a matter of national embarrassment. The Committee’s findings mirrored  what might be heard on a radio phone-in today - alongside issues which are beyond an individual’s control such as poor housing and pollution the Committee blamed parental neglect and incompetent mothers. 

Both of our speakers showed that placing even greater responsibility on individuals, especially when healthy choices are unaffordable for a significant proportion of the population, is not the way forward. The problems of poor nutrition are not going to be solved by making ever greater efforts to persuade and cajole us all to make better choices. Yes, as Ritchie said, we could try to stop children ending up in hospital with mouths full of rotten teeth by making it as socially unacceptable to feed sugary treats to children under five as it would be to encourage them to smoke. However, the key message was that food systems need to change which requires joined up working across governments, business and wider civil society.

Further reading:

See here for more information about Nourish Scotland and here for Rathbone Greenbank Investments.  Rathbone Greenbank formed the Investor Coalition on UK Food Policy alongside The Food Foundation, an NGO focusing on food policy reform, to help support the review and drive forward its initiatives. The coalition is composed of 23 investors representing £6 trillion in assets.