Do hospitals need to do more about junk food?

The “obesity crisis” is a recurring theme in the news and is something I have written about before. I plan to write briefly on it again this week having read an article by a Cardiologist on the BBC news health page.

“A report by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges called for a range of measures...including improving food in hospitals” to try and tackle the so called obesity crisis. Another “report by the group Sustain has also called for hospital food to meet mandatory nutritional standards.”

After all, shouldn’t hospitals be leading by example?

The clinician speaks of their own experiences and feels it is unacceptable to have “fast food franchises on site and corridors littered with vending machines selling junk food.” I can draw parallels with this as the cardiology ward I volunteer on has a ‘fizzy drinks’ vending machine down the corridor, but by contrast the meals on the ward itself appear to be balanced and the menu follows a fortnightly cycle.

Chief executives and senior managers defend such practices by arguing that the revenue from the sale of these products is used to save lives. But is such practice acceptable? These items may well have contributed to the patients admission in the first place! Most would agree that selling cigarettes to produce revenue to treat patients would be unacceptable. So, how different is selling fast food products to produce revenue?

Hospital staff are also suffering from serious weight problems as well as patients. A recent report from the Royal College of Physicians revealed that “half of the 1.4 million people who work for the NHS are obese”

Shouldn’t NHS staff be leading by example?

The article suggests that education alone will not tackle the obesity crisis and that the food industry (for example advertisements,) has a much greater impact on our eating habits than we realise.

In summary the NHS and health campaigners need to try and capture the attention of the public above the food corporations who are driven by profit rather than good health. However perhaps patients will only listen once the message has reached the NHS staff surrounding them. To achieve this the food industry needs to be regulated more strictly and a good place to start would be hospitals. Finally obesity is an ongoing problem and not one which can be fixed quickly and simply.