Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales

In 2019, the Welsh Government launched the Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales campaign. This is a long-term strategy that aims to significantly prevent and reduce the obesity levels in Wales by 2030. The Welsh Government seeks to do this by focusing on four key areas:

• Healthy Environments
• Healthy Settings
• Healthy People
• Leadership and Enabling Change

As a part of this initiative the Welsh Government recently launched the Healthy Food Environment consultation. The Healthy Food Environment plan hopes to take action across the food environment and consider changes which will reimagine how food choices can shift towards better dietary health. The Welsh Government hopes that these changes will help making the healthy choice, the easy choice. They are consulting upon proposals across three themes:

• Healthier shopping baskets – which aims to encourage healthy choices by encouraging more offers for healthy foods making it easier for people to choose
• Healthier eating out and takeaways – which aims to introduce calorie information on online menus for home delivery meals
• Healthier food environments – which aims to create action in local communities to make healthy choices the easier choices and limit the number of takeaways in towns and close to schools and colleges.

The consultation ends on 1^st September 2022 and you can access more information and submit your response here.

The Welsh Government is also consulting on a proposal to end the sale of energy drinks to children under 16. The consultation covers whether the ban of energy drinks should apply to the aforementioned group, whether it should be widened to also include other drinks typically high in caffeine such as tea and coffee and whether the ban should cover all shops and online environments.

This proposal is also part of the Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales initiative and ends on 1^st September 2022. You can read about the proposal in more details and submit your response here.

You can stay up to date with Government updates across the UK, here.