Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair. I served a 13-year apprenticeship at this committee and am delighted to be back here as Minister of State.

The members will have heard from my predecessor, Deputy Naughton, in February on the commercial determinants of health. I very much welcome the opportunity to speak to members today about a related matter of great importance: childhood obesity. I am delighted that representatives of Safefood have also been invited to the committee meeting today. I had the opportunity to launch the Safefood public health campaign on addressing the food environment in June. I am joined today by my Department officials from the health and well-being programme, namely, Matthew Doyle, Catherine Curran and Colin O'Hehir. I am also joined by Dr. Orla Walsh, a consultant paediatrician with expertise in treating child and adolescent obesity in Children's Health Ireland's child and adolescent complex obesity service. Dr. Walsh chairs the obesity programme clinical advisory group for the HSE.

One in five of our primary school children is living with being overweight or with obesity. In socially deprived areas, it is one in every four children. These are the latest figures from the WHO Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative, COSI, a report on which I launched in June. It is reassuring that the majority of our primary school children aged between seven and 11 are of a normal weight and that the prevalence of childhood obesity in Ireland has remained static since the COSI project started in 2008. This is despite recent challenges to lifestyle and health behaviours brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The increase in childhood obesity rates experienced by our closest neighbour, the UK, during the pandemic did not happen here in Ireland. Nonetheless, it is concerning that the data continues to show higher levels of overweight and obesity in areas of disadvantage. Living with overweight and obesity can have a significant impact on a child's welfare. Such children are at risk of poor physical health into adulthood. They can also experience weight stigma, social isolation, poor self-esteem and poor mental health.

The Department of Health, under the Healthy Ireland framework and through the obesity policy and action plan, OPAP, is overseeing many cross-sectoral initiatives that seek to improve health and well-being for all children. I will briefly outline just some of the work we are doing and what our priorities are for the future. A Healthy Weight for Ireland, the obesity policy and action plan for 2016 to 2025, was published under the Healthy Ireland framework to address both childhood and adult obesity. The OPAP includes a range of actions on health promotion and education, prevention of overweight and obesity, actions to manage and treat obesity within our health services and actions that relate to the wider obesogenic environment. While the Department of Health, together with the health services and organisations under its auspices, is responsible for delivering most of the OPAP actions, a number of other Departments work with us and have responsibility for driving particular actions. They include the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, the Department of Education and the Department of Social Protection.

Policy measures under the OPAP are broadly in line with the World Health Organization's policy recommendations to address obesity. Ireland introduced a sugar-sweetened drinks tax in 2018. We have almost finalised an evaluation of the tax. Preliminary indications show the policy objectives of the tax, namely, to reduce sugar consumption associated with sugar-sweetened drinks and drive product reformulation, are being met. The evaluation will be published in the near future.

We established the food reformulation task force in 2021. A partnership between Healthy Ireland and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, its objective is to deliver the food reformulation roadmap out to 2025. The voluntary reformulation programme aims to reduce consumption of calories and sugar by 20% and consumption of saturated fat and salt by 10% in priority food categories.

Marketing of unhealthy food to children has increased significantly as they have embraced digital technologies. Safefood has some very concerning findings in this regard. Ireland participated in the EU's joint action project on addressing marketing to children, Best-ReMaP. The output from that work will provide national policy direction. The Department has been engaging with Coimisiún na Meán as it prepares to review the children's commercial communications code to include online media platforms. That is a significant issue in regard to children.

The promotion of physical activity is a key priority under Healthy Ireland. Increasing population levels of physical activity relies on engagement with a wide range of stakeholders. My Department co-leads cross-sectoral actions under our national physical activity plan. We also work closely with the Department of Education on the Active School Flag initiative, which seeks to get more schools more active, more often. It operates chiefly in primary school settings across the country. We are now expanding the programme into post-primary settings as we seek to build on the 2,100 schools that have participated since 2009.

The Department of Health provides support to the hot school meals programme, which is led by the Department of Social Protection. It aims to provide regular, nutritious food to children to support them in taking full advantage of the education provided to them. The nutrition standards for the hot school meals programme, published by the Department of Health, are designed to support food business organisations in creating suitable menu options to meet healthy eating guidelines for children in primary school.

The HSE, under the OPAP, provides many services to support children having the best start in life and to promote healthy eating and active living in the community. Research shows that maternal weight at conception and gestational weight gain play roles in health outcomes for pregnancy. Nutritional guidelines are covered during the booking visit and in the My Pregnancy book for mothers-to-be. As care is individualised, further supports are provided as needed.

The Government remains committed to improving breast-feeding rates and moving towards normalising breast-feeding in our society. The HSE is currently evaluating the implementation of its breast-feeding action plan. The Department will work with the HSE to develop a future breast-feeding strategy.

Funding of €1.3 million was allocated to the HSE in 2022 for the recruitment of 19 community food and nutrition officers as part of the Sláintecare healthy communities programme. The HSE oversees the healthy eating and active living programme, which includes a number of community-based initiatives, including the healthy food made easy programme. Healthy Ireland also funds the training programme for healthcare professionals run by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland on child and adolescent obesity.

The OPAP does not cover just health promotion and obesity prevention. It also commits to providing services for the management and treatment of obesity. Professor Donal O'Shea, a champion for addressing obesity, was appointed as the clinical lead for obesity in 2017. The HSE has developed a model of care for the management and treatment of obesity for both children and adults. Services for children are beginning to be put in place.

Looking ahead to future actions, we are developing the next version of the OPAP. It will be our roadmap for future efforts in addressing obesity, including childhood obesity. The plan will emphasise the need for a whole-of-government approach, recognising that the determinants of obesity are complex and interrelated. In addition to seeking to strengthen the supports available to children and parents within the health services, we will work with all relevant Departments and sectors of society to create the right environment within which our children can live healthy and active lives. By addressing the broader social and commercial determinants of health, we can create sustainable change and reduce the challenges faced by children living with overweight and obesity.

There is great value in educating children and parents on the importance of healthy eating and physical activity through the school curriculum, through community-based organisations, in mass media campaigns and in many other settings. However, research and practice show that such initiatives are not enough on their own. I very much welcome the focus of Safefood's new public health campaign. I hope it will ignite a discussion and raise awareness across Irish society about our children's food environment.

I am confident that as we develop the next OPAP to address obesity in Ireland, we will continue to introduce and strengthen measures that support an environment in which healthier food options are available, accessible and affordable. Together, we can create a healthier future for our children, ensuring they grow up with the opportunity to lead full, healthy and active lives. I thank members for their time. I look forward to answering their questions.