SGF calls for legislation on healthier food and drink

82% of Dutch people think it is important to make processed food healthier. They think that soft drinks with lots of sugar should become more expensive (63%) and 72% say there should be a ban on advertising unhealthy food to children. This is evident from research by Diabetes Fund, Heart Foundation, Gastrointestinal Foundation and Kidney Foundation. The health funds (SGF), united in the Alliance Nutrition for a Healthy Generation, want the political parties in a new coalition agreement to encourage supermarkets and manufacturers through legislation to make our food and drink healthier. The call is supported by UNICEF Netherlands and the City of Amsterdam.

The current measures are inadequate. Time and again, the agreements between the government and the food industry to make food and drink healthier have not led to sufficient improvement. The amount of salt, sugar and saturated fat in products has not been sufficiently reduced. With the campaign "It's time for healthy food", the Alliance partners are pleading with the new cabinet to put an end to the non-committal nature of covenants and voluntary agreements.

Tom Oostrom (Director Kidney Foundation, on behalf of the Alliance Nutrition for the Healthy Generation): "Unhealthy food and drink makes people sick. That's why the amount of salt, sugar and unhealthy fat in products must be reduced. Manufacturers and supermarkets are taking too small steps. Time after time we see that our food and drink remain too unhealthy. The new cabinet must prioritize legislation to make it easier for the Dutch to eat and drink healthily. The years of self-regulation by the food industry have achieved too little."

The Alliance Nutrition for the Healthy Generation advocates the following measures

1. Make processed foods healthier: Products in supermarkets and in the hospitality industry must become healthier with less salt, sugar and unhealthy fat. Manufacturers should therefore be required to reduce the amount of salt, sugar and unhealthy fat in products annually.
2. Less sugar in soft drinks: Despite agreements, manufacturers do not do enough to reduce the amount of sugar in soft drinks and therefore it is necessary that the government takes measures. Such as a tax on too much sugar. A solution with which we protect especially young people - as large consumers of sugary drinks - against excessive sugar intake and the development of type 2 diabetes.
3. Only children's marketing for healthy food: Too few children in the Netherlands have a healthy diet. Children's marketing now too often entices children to eat unhealthy food; the Alliance believes that children's marketing should only be used to promote healthy food and drink. This means a ban on all forms of marketing to children for products such as soft drinks, cookies, ice cream and potato chips.

A healthy diet for every child

Unhealthy food is the second most important preventable cause of death after smoking, with 12,900 deaths per year. The Netherlands has about 350,000 children who are (much) too heavy. If the new cabinet makes the food environment healthier with immediate effect, every child can develop a healthy diet. As a result, a generation will grow up that will later be less sick. "If we do nothing now, in 2040 almost two thirds (2) of the Dutch population will be overweight, with all its consequences. That's more than 9 million people. To tackle this problem, we want a society where healthy eating and drinking is the standard. Starting with the youth", says Oostrom.

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