Right now in the UK, around two-thirds of all adults are living with excess weight and obesity. This is not just a crisis for adults - more than one in 5 primary school-aged children in England are now living with it.

A year ago, the government set out a ‘moonshot’ to end the obesity epidemic in the 10 Year Health Plan for England. However, successive governments have announced almost 700 initiatives to tackle obesity in the last 30 years - in that time, rates have doubled. Too often measures have relied on trying to encourage individual behaviour change, neglecting the food environment which shapes our diets and drives us to overconsume unhealthy options. 

In this episode of the Policy Fix podcast, host Joe Owen is joined by Dr Dolly van Tulleken, an obesity and food policy expert and visiting researcher at Cambridge University, and Hugo Harper, director of Nesta’s healthy life mission, to unpack the structural factors shaping what we eat, why previous government policies have been watered down or delayed and what the evidence shows really works. 

The conversation maps out why the UK needs to move beyond slow, insufficient or voluntary measures towards bold new solutions like mandatory targets for large food businesses. They dig into the junk food advertising ban and its loopholes, the sugar tax, GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, and what the hard-won lessons from tobacco control can teach us about future policy.

Watch the full episode on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. 

Liked the conversation? Make sure to subscribe, rate and leave a review.

Dr Dolly van Tulleken, founder and director, Dolitics

Dr Dolly van Tulleken founded Dolitics to help drive positive policy change towards a healthier, more sustainable and equitable society. 

Alongside her consultancy work, Dolly is a visiting researcher at Cambridge University's MRC Epidemiology Unit where she completed her PhD on UK government obesity policy. Her research examined why 30 years of government obesity policy in England has failed to reduce obesity prevalence and improve population health, what influences government policymaking and the specific role of policy entrepreneurs.  Her research has been published in high-impact journals and used by government.

Previously, Dolly led the childhood obesity and grassroots sport research at the Centre for Social Justice think tank, ran an election campaign and was a parliamentary researcher in the House of Lords.

Hugo Harper, mission director, healthy life mission, Nesta

Hugo leads Nesta's healthy life mission. He leads a team that identifies, tests and scales innovative solutions to obesity. This includes Nesta’s groundbreaking blueprint to halve obesity, a toolkit for policymakers to evaluate the efficacy of different obesity reduction policies.

Hugo is an expert in public health interventions and has a background in behavioural science. While obesity is his specialist area, he has worked on many aspects of public health, from antimicrobial resistance to workplace well-being. During the pandemic, Hugo spent almost all his time on the Covid-19 response and sat on the SAGE sub-group SPI-B. He has overseen projects with a wide range of partners including No10, government departments, large charities and private sector players.

Prior to Nesta, he worked at BIT (the Behavioural Insights Team) where he led their work on health and education, helping them grow from a small team in the Cabinet Office to a global organisation of more than 250 people. He has overseen projects with a wide range of partners including No10, government departments, large charities and private sector players.

Outside of the UK, he has spent time in both Singapore and Australia working on developing the adoption of a more behavioural approach to public health policy implementation.