Speaker 1: Kyota.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. New research
Speaker 2: shows a third of New Zealand adults are obese and
Speaker 2: policies focused on individual responsibility of failing. A Helen Clark
Speaker 2: Foundation report suggests tackling obesity will require cracking down on
Speaker 2: junk food advertising, the proliferation of takeaways, and bringing in
Speaker 2: new levies on unhealthy products. So is the era of
Speaker 2: placing the blame on the individual going to be a
Speaker 2: thing of the past? And can the government do anything
Speaker 2: to curb obesity in this country today? On the front page,
Speaker 2: Helen Clark Foundation Executive Director Murray Brouge is with us
Speaker 2: to discuss. First off, Murray, can you give me a
Speaker 2: brief overview of what the Junk Food and Poor Policy
Speaker 2: Report is about?
Speaker 3: Yes, certainly. Our report is about how poor policy around
Speaker 3: unhealthy food is hurting New Zealanders and New Zealand as
Speaker 3: a whole in terms of our health, our productivity, and
Speaker 3: the two billion it costs our public health system to
Speaker 3: treat diseases associated with obesity, like type two diabetes, like
Speaker 3: high blood pressure, like heart disease, with around one in
Speaker 3: three New Zealanders living with obesity. We've got the third
Speaker 3: highest rates in the OECD, and that's estimated to cost
Speaker 3: US nine billion loss productivity, things like reduced life expectancy,
Speaker 3: lower workforce participation, in lower wages, that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: And it also costs US two billion in public health
Speaker 3: spend treating the diseases associated with obesity. So we really
Speaker 3: do have a problem them with unhealthy food in this country.
Speaker 3: But I think more than that, the report is about
Speaker 3: the proven policies that we could implement today if we
Speaker 3: wanted to, that would make a major difference to these challenges.
Speaker 3: These are policies that have been shown in comparable countries
Speaker 3: to reduce obesity, to improve productivity, and to reduce the
Speaker 3: strain on the public health budget. So I think despite
Speaker 3: the fact that we've allowed unhealthy food to do quite
Speaker 3: a lot of damage in New Zealand, we actually have
Speaker 3: a great opportunity to improve things and we could get
Speaker 3: started today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, why are successive governments so hell banned on the
Speaker 2: idea that obesity is a matter of individual responsibility.
Speaker 4: It's a hard question to answer.
Speaker 3: What our report focuses on is the opportunity in front
Speaker 3: of us, if we chose to implement policies that have
Speaker 3: been shown to work elsewhere. You know, not every country
Speaker 3: sticks steadfastly to this idea that it's only about individual responsibility.
Speaker 3: There are a range of policies that have been implemented
Speaker 3: elsewhere with in some cases really really great rates of success.
Speaker 3: You know, that show that you can reduce consumption and
Speaker 3: that'll flow through to improvements in overall health and as
Speaker 3: I say, reduce pressure on the public health spend and potentially,
Speaker 3: you know, overall improvements in economic productivity. So there really
Speaker 3: is a pretty strong case for action here.
Speaker 2: What's happening in New Zealand at the moment? Can you
Speaker 2: tell me why one out of three adults are obese?
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not always about trusting people to make
Speaker 2: the right choices.
Speaker 4: Hey, well, that's right.
Speaker 3: I mean what this report does as it looks at
Speaker 3: what we call the food environment and you zeealand or
Speaker 3: the commercial food environment, which reflects the fact that we
Speaker 3: have a lot of unhealthy foods, you know, on our streets,
Speaker 3: on our supermarket shelves, we've got some pretty sophisticated marketing
Speaker 3: of unhealthy food on our airways, and we don't have
Speaker 3: much in the way of regulation around that regulation that
Speaker 3: you stay to see being implemented in other countries. We've
Speaker 3: allowed an environment to develop where it's very hard for
Speaker 3: people to make healthy choices about the food they ate.
Speaker 1: The UK sugar attacks officially the soft drinks industry levy,
Speaker 1: implemented in twenty eighteen, was proven transformative and combating excessive
Speaker 1: sugar consumption. According to reports, children's sugar intake from soft
Speaker 1: drinks dropped by approximately fifty percent, while adults also reduce
Speaker 1: their consumption by a third.
Speaker 2: You mentioned New Zealand is the third highest rate of
Speaker 2: obesity in the OECD, and you mentioned related illnesses cost
Speaker 2: the health system two billion a year and that nine
Speaker 2: billion dollars in loss productivity. Do those figures surprise you
Speaker 2: at all?
Speaker 4: I think they do.
Speaker 3: I mean that two billion and public health spend for
Speaker 3: the diseases related to obesity. That's eight percent of our
Speaker 3: whole health budget. As I understand that. You know, if
Speaker 3: we could reduce that, that would free up lot of
Speaker 3: budget for other priorities in the public health sector, like
Speaker 3: elective surgery. That is a lot of money and likewise
Speaker 3: nine billion lost productivity that would be really really helpful
Speaker 3: for a New Zealand economy that's doing it tough right now.
Speaker 3: So you know, the opportunity here is pretty significant.
Speaker 2: Does the cost of healthy options being astronomically more expensive
Speaker 2: than those naughty ones have anything to do with it?
Speaker 2: I mean, we do live in a country where a
Speaker 2: bag of grapes is fifteen dollars.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it does.
Speaker 3: And that's one of the compounding factors here. In addition
Speaker 3: to not having some of the regulations in place that
Speaker 3: we think should be and that are you know, in
Speaker 3: other countries that we like to compare ourselves to, We've also,
Speaker 3: for a complicated range of reasons that the report doesn't
Speaker 3: go into, we've also seen the price of healthy food
Speaker 3: grow much faster than the price of unhealthy food, and
Speaker 3: that's just another thing that makes it hard for people
Speaker 3: to choose to make healthy food choices. It's the costs
Speaker 3: of healthy food in this country are very very high.
Speaker 2: What can the government or what can we do about that?
Speaker 3: Though it's a government, you know, one of the main
Speaker 3: duties of a government is to look out for and
Speaker 3: improve the health of its population. So our report outlines
Speaker 3: a few things that the government should be doing. One
Speaker 3: of which is a sugar levy, which you would you
Speaker 3: would probably start that as other countries have on sugary drinks,
Speaker 3: and what you're doing there is it's not about adding
Speaker 3: another tax. And if you design this thing well and
Speaker 3: again we've got other examples that we can draw on
Speaker 3: countries that look and operate a lot like ours, where
Speaker 3: they've been able to do this in a way that
Speaker 3: means that what you're really trying to do is incentivize
Speaker 3: and encourage the manufacturers to reformulate their products in a
Speaker 3: way that to include less or will potentially no.
Speaker 4: Sugar in them. And then you know, it's not.
Speaker 3: About getting consumers to pay more, and it's certainly not
Speaker 3: about revenue raising. It's about changing the formulations of these
Speaker 3: products to to essentially make them less unhealthy, to to
Speaker 3: have less sugar in them, and that it's got all
Speaker 3: kinds of benefits that flow through, obviously in terms of
Speaker 3: obesiing and some of the didase that associated with it,
Speaker 3: but also in terms of things like dental carries, and
Speaker 3: that's one of the things that you've seen in the
Speaker 3: UK is a big reduction since they've implemented this. I
Speaker 3: think they call the sugary drinks industry levy, they've seen
Speaker 3: a big reduction and hospitalizations of children needing serious dental treatment.
Speaker 4: So we know this stuff works well.
Speaker 2: There are now more than a hundred countries around the
Speaker 2: globe that have introduced some kind of variation on the
Speaker 2: sugar tacks. So surely it's not seen as something as
Speaker 2: radical as it may have in the beginning.
Speaker 4: Hey, yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3: Perhaps twenty years ago, you know, you might have argued
Speaker 3: that individual choice was the way to go. But with
Speaker 3: the evidence now one about the damage unhealthy food and
Speaker 3: food that's very very high in sugar or perhaps salt
Speaker 3: and fat does to the population. And two with the
Speaker 3: effect of policies that we're starting to see increasingly in
Speaker 3: other countries or certainly at this you know, subnational state
Speaker 3: level around the world.
Speaker 4: This stuff works.
Speaker 3: It should probably be a lot less confronting to politicians,
Speaker 3: and perhaps it was twenty years ago. And then the
Speaker 3: other really important point there is to know, you know,
Speaker 3: there there's been opinion polling on this showing that I
Speaker 3: think twice as many New Zealanders support some form of
Speaker 3: sugar levy as opposed it outright. And then the numbers
Speaker 3: for New Zealanders who want to see some controls on
Speaker 3: marketing of junk food, especially to children, are overwhelmingly positive.
Speaker 3: So there's not a whole lot of reasons, political or
Speaker 3: substantive why you wouldn't want to implement some of these policies.
Speaker 2: What are some of the Foundation's recommendations to the government.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we think there should be a sugar levy
Speaker 3: on I think you probably start with soft drinks. We
Speaker 3: think there should be controls on the marketing of unhealthy food,
Speaker 3: especially to children. Again, in the UK, you've just seen
Speaker 3: the implementation of a watershed on advertising unhealthy food. I
Speaker 3: think it's between five thirty in the morning and nineteen
Speaker 3: at night, so you're not exposing children to that. In
Speaker 3: New Zealand, we've seen research that shows that children are
Speaker 3: exposed to adverts for unhealthy food sixty eight times per day,
Speaker 3: So we should really look seriously at putting some rules
Speaker 3: around that and reducing children's exposure to advertising for unhealthy food.
Speaker 3: We also think the government could lead by example and
Speaker 3: implement stronger, clearer policies for providing healthy food across the
Speaker 3: millions of meals that are provided on government properties. For
Speaker 3: they schools, hospitals, army canteens, prisons every year. There are
Speaker 3: bits and pieces of policies around that, but having direction
Speaker 3: around the fact that all of those meals should be healthy,
Speaker 3: would would set a really good example, would have some
Speaker 3: pretty positive effects on health outcomes in New Zealand.
Speaker 2: When was Jamie Oliver's special I remember seeing it on
Speaker 2: TV and he was redesigning tuck shops in the UK.
Speaker 4: Jamie Oliver is questioning the government's commitment to improve school
Speaker 4: food for all children.
Speaker 2: It's been an incredible journey just to kind of take
Speaker 2: your mind back.
Speaker 1: There used to be standards for dog food, but not
Speaker 1: kids food in school.
Speaker 2: Now we want to give to the public delivery of
Speaker 2: the standard that must have been over ten years ago.
Speaker 2: Now when that kind of revolutionary thinking came about, why
Speaker 2: haven't we done it yet?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, it's a great question. There have been some
Speaker 3: attempts at at the Helen Clark government. Helen Clark led
Speaker 3: government of two thousand and eight did put some rules
Speaker 3: in place requiring schools to serve only healthy food. They
Speaker 3: were subsequently repealed. I think there is a fear in
Speaker 3: this country or among the countries' political leaders, of being
Speaker 3: seen to be you nanny states telling people how to
Speaker 3: live their lives. But that's not really what this is about.
Speaker 3: It's about making it easier for people to make healthy
Speaker 3: food choices. And as I say, it doesn't take much
Speaker 3: looking around the rest of the world to see that.
Speaker 3: You know, most of these other countries have moved on.
Speaker 3: They've realized how effect of some of these policies can be,
Speaker 3: not only in improving the health outcomes across the population,
Speaker 3: but reducing pressure on public health budgets and you know,
Speaker 3: potentially unlocking economic productivity as well.
Speaker 2: You've mentioned laws in the UK. Are there any other
Speaker 2: countries that are doing it right?
Speaker 3: I understand there are some really effective policies and much
Speaker 3: of Latin America, And then there are various state level
Speaker 3: policies around the place, including in the United States, where
Speaker 3: where these policies have been implemented and have been found
Speaker 3: to be effective.
Speaker 2: Isn't it a known fact that there are more concentrations
Speaker 2: of say, fast food outlets and lower socioeconomic areas. I mean,
Speaker 2: how do we stop that from happening?
Speaker 4: It is, that's absolutely right.
Speaker 3: Some research done a few years ago by the Helen
Speaker 3: Clark Foundation found that there could be up to three
Speaker 3: times the concentration of unhealthy food outlets and the lowest
Speaker 3: decile communities compared to the highest desil communities. Look, one
Speaker 3: of the things that this report calls for is to
Speaker 3: give councils more authority, more control to regulate the number
Speaker 3: or the concentration of fast food outlets and within the
Speaker 3: communities that they look after. That could be one way
Speaker 3: of doing it, much in the same way that they
Speaker 3: have that power to some extent with bottle stores with
Speaker 3: the sale of alcohol. You could give councils that power,
Speaker 3: and that would be one way of helping reduce what
Speaker 3: is a very high prevalence of unhealthy food outlets. And
Speaker 3: many of our communities probably provides a bit of more
Speaker 3: tax relief for inside of other spaces.
Speaker 2: Nah, I think that would be too much evan to
Speaker 2: enforce and start and I don't know, it assumes like
Speaker 2: waste of time.
Speaker 4: Sugar's not that bad, is it, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Good thing, good thing, yeah, for healthy It's proven in
Speaker 1: other countries, right, it's more healthier for people, right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: good thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think it would be pretty good to helping
Speaker 4: out the assuming the money went to like healthcare. Then
Speaker 4: I'm on board.
Speaker 2: I know when talking about this subject, some people say, Look,
Speaker 2: why don't people just make healthier choices? I choose to
Speaker 2: eat vegetables and fruit every day? Why can't everyone do that?
Speaker 2: And there's different variables to that, right, there's price and
Speaker 2: there's advertising. I mean, can you explain that a little.
Speaker 4: Bit to me? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Look, I mean I think you've touched on to the
Speaker 3: important things there. What it really comes down to, I
Speaker 3: think is we've made it quite hard to make healthy
Speaker 3: food choices in this country. We don't have the same
Speaker 3: rules that are a lot of other countries have adopted
Speaker 3: that are designed to make it easier to eat healthy.
Speaker 3: And then to your point, New Zealand's got expensive food
Speaker 3: relative to other countries as it is, but healthy food
Speaker 3: is particularly expensive and has increased in price a lot
Speaker 3: in recent years. As a graph and a report that
Speaker 3: illustrates this quite clearly. So we've just made it too
Speaker 3: hard to eat healthily in this country, and then that
Speaker 3: rebounds on everybody. We're less healthy as a country, we're
Speaker 3: less productive, and we've got to spend that much more
Speaker 3: of our limited health budget treating the diseases that come
Speaker 3: with with high obesity rates.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's really no surprise that the vegetables and
Speaker 2: fruits in this country are astronomically more expensive, There's no
Speaker 2: doubt about it. I remember seeing a viral recipe for
Speaker 2: a cucumber salad. People were making this cucumber salad and
Speaker 2: you need about five cucumbers, and I remember reading the
Speaker 2: comments from those people in New Zealand saying cucumbers are
Speaker 2: like eight dollars each. Now, this is impossible. So it's
Speaker 2: really no surprise. Could the Grocery Commissioner get involved when
Speaker 2: it comes to pricing around around healthier foods?
Speaker 3: What the policy options are there people to you know,
Speaker 3: you've seen proposals to take gst off fruit and veggies.
Speaker 3: You know, there are other ways of the social supermarkets
Speaker 3: or other people have proposed subsidies for healthy food Those
Speaker 3: are all potentially, at least some of those options could
Speaker 3: potentially be effective. But our reports really focused on some
Speaker 3: of those other things that we've talked about, the levy
Speaker 3: on sugary beverages, on banning marketing to children, and on
Speaker 3: thinking about how the government can lead by example, given
Speaker 3: that it provides so many meals over the course of
Speaker 3: the year, on all all its properties.
Speaker 2: So Associate Health Minister Matt Doocy, he's responsible for nutrition,
Speaker 2: has he commented on any of the recommendations made in
Speaker 2: this report.
Speaker 4: Not that I have seen.
Speaker 3: We have recently shared an advanced copy of the report
Speaker 3: with him, and I've offer briefed him and Health Minister
Speaker 3: Ritty as well. So I really look forward to engaging
Speaker 3: with them on this if they're interested in effective policy
Speaker 3: and policy that's informed by very clear evidence, and I
Speaker 3: hope they'll be interested in the recommendations of this report.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Murray, Thank you, Chelsea. That's it
Speaker 2: for this episode of The Front Page. You can read
Speaker 2: more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzdherld
Speaker 2: dot co dot MZ. The Front Page is produced by
Speaker 2: Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also a sound engineer.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio
Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow
Speaker 2: for another look behind the headlines.