Ban Junk Food Ads And Tax Sugary Drinks - MPs

The Government needs to be "bold and brave" in trying to tackle Britain's obesity problem - and not rely on healthy eating campaigns and promoting exercise, the chair of a group of MPs has told Sky News.

Members of the Commons health committee said it was time for a "far more ambitious" approach in the way the Government targets obesity.

The recommendations in their report include:

:: Banning junk food adverts before the 9pm watershed during TV programmes

:: Greater controls to stop supermarkets offering buy-one-get-one-free deals on unhealthy food

:: Warnings on drink bottles to flag up how many spoonfuls of sugar they contain

:: A 20% tax on full-sugar drinks with the money raised going towards preventing childhood obesity

:: An outright ban on supermarkets placing sweets and other less healthy foods at the ends of aisles and checkouts

:: The use of cartoon characters and celebrities in children's advertising should be restricted

:: New guidelines on what constitutes a healthy school packed lunch.

Dr Sarah Wollaston, the health committee's chair, said the Government's current approach was naive and a much tougher approach to tackling the "huge health inequality gap" was needed.

She said: "What we felt was that the problem is so great that it’s time for action and just taking gentle measures that tinker at the edges won’t have the effect we need.

"If the problem is great enough we need to do something that makes a difference."

She added: "A quarter of children from the most disadvantaged families are leaving school not just overweight but obese.

"That’s just wholly unacceptable."

The new report follows a row between the health committee, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Public Health England (PHE) about recommendations in a PHE report suggesting a sugar tax be introduced.

Prime Minister David Cameron is known not to be in favour of the idea.

Mark Littlewood, director of the Institute of Economic Affairs, told Sky News he thinks the proposal is "pretty daft".

"Where these sort of taxes have been tried elsewhere in the world, they’ve been diabolical failures in changing consumption."

He believes families would simply switch to value brands rather than cut down on their consumption.

"There's plenty of information for consumers, I think sometimes those from or around the medical profession get irritated that free people don't behave as they wish but legislation, heavy regulation and taxes is not the way to combat that."

New figures last week showed a third of 10 and 11-year-olds in England are overweight or obese, although obesity among younger children is falling.

Treating obesity and its consequences currently costs the NHS £5.1bn every year.