It is time the government treated hunger and obesity as two interlinked problems

The cabinet committee the MPs want should become the delivery arm of a statutory right to adequate food, writes Prof Kent Buse of the World Obesity Federation

Your report (UK government’s obesity plan ‘doomed to fail’, MPs warn, 30 October) arrives a fortnight after the Right to Food UK Commission asked the same prime minister for the same thing: a legal duty on government, a minister responsible for it, and an independent body reporting to parliament.

Each report sees half the problem. The Health and Social Care Committee wants prevention and treatment run as separate workstreams, and stops at urging ministers to stand up to the food industry. The commission sees hunger as a question of income and rights, but says little about the quality of the diet that low incomes buy. The same food system, and the same households, produce both hunger and obesity. Whitehall treats them as two problems, with two sets of ministers and no shared accountability, and so neither is solved.

The remedy is to combine the two asks. The cabinet committee the MPs want should become the delivery arm of a statutory right to adequate food, in the sense the UN covenant on economic, social and cultural rights already gives it: enough food, and food that nourishes. That duty needs measurable targets, an independent commission reporting annually to parliament, and conflict-of-interest rules that keep manufacturers and retailers out of the policy process, as tobacco control has required for 20 years.

Mr Burnham praised the Right To Food campaign at prime minister’s questions on 14 October. Ministers are due back before MPs within three months with a plan. Combining the two reports would give that plan something it currently lacks: a structure that holds government to account for what people eat. Prof Kent Buse Co-chair, Policy and Prevention Committee, World Obesity Federation