In July 2025 the UK government published its 10 Year Health Plan, which includes the ambition to shift from treating ill health to preventing it happening in the first place. As part of this shift, the government says it wants to ‘end the obesity epidemic’ and has set out measures to do so, including a new healthy food standard to set a minimum target for healthy food sales for the largest supermarkets.

What does the public think about taking action on obesity? Over the last few months - prior to the publication of the 10 Year Health Plan - Nesta worked with More in Common to ask people their opinions about obesity and the action required to tackle it. We surveyed around 6,000 adults across Scotland, England and Wales and ran six focus groups in England.

1. People think tackling obesity should be a priority and want action taken to reduce it

When asked how much the government should prioritise obesity, 42% said it should be an important or top priority. The public also understands that obesity adds pressure to the NHS. Over half (54%) of Britons said strain on NHS resources and services is the top reason to act on obesity.

People want to be healthy. When asked how easy or difficult it is to maintain a healthy weight, one in three Britons (35%) said that it’s difficult to maintain a healthy weight in the UK today.

When asked if the government is doing enough to tackle obesity in the UK, nearly half of the public think the government isn’t doing enough and want to see more action being taken to reduce obesity rates - although this survey took place before the recent publication of the 10 Year Health Plan. People don’t seem to be fearful of government intervention, or the so-called ‘nanny state’. Rather, people want action on the root causes of ill health, like obesity, and are tired of inaction. They see this issue as fixable.

2. People are aware of the influence of supermarkets on what we buy and eat, and they want these businesses on their side

People understand the impact that supermarkets have on their diets. Nearly 4 in 5 Britons (78%) say that supermarkets have either ‘a great deal’ or ‘some’ influence over their diets.

Promotions and advertising play a role in shaping what ends up in shoppers’ baskets, whether they intended it to or not. Almost two-thirds say they are at least ‘somewhat’ influenced by promotions and pricing in supermarkets.

The public would also like to see supermarkets do more to help them to choose healthier options. 63% of Britons think that supermarkets have a lot or some influence to reduce obesity rates in the UK. And nearly half of the public think the government should make it the responsibility of supermarkets to sell more healthy food.

3. People are broadly supportive of policies to tackle obesity

Given people want action on obesity, it is not surprising to see lots of support for a range of policy options to reduce obesity. For most of the policies we tested, net support was around 50% or higher. Net support is the overall support for the policy minus the overall opposition for the policy.

However public support does not necessarily align with the policies that we know would be the most effective at tackling obesity. Our blueprint for halving obesity found that many of the most popular policies would have very little effect on reducing obesity (such as physical activity in schools). But our blueprint did not consider the wider benefits of these policies, only the impact on obesity rates.

4. A majority of people think health targets for supermarkets are a good idea

The proposal for targets for supermarkets to sell more healthy food was well received. This is a policy idea developed by Nesta in 2024, and one which the UK government’s healthy food standard is based on. This research took place before the UK government announced this policy.

We did further testing on this policy in isolation. When asked specifically about this policy, three in five people (59%) think that health targets for supermarkets are a good idea and will help to reduce obesity rates.

This positive support was maintained even when we used alternative wordings of the policy. We tested descriptions of the policy that were positive, neutral, negative or that combined both positive and negative elements. When shown the positive wording 69% of participants were supportive of the policy. And even when testing the policy with the negative messaging, still more than half thought it was a good idea. This indicates the policy is resilient to more negative framings or attacks.

Setting targets for healthy food sales in supermarkets was discussed in the focus groups. There was support for this idea as participants recognised the influence supermarkets have on what ends up in our baskets and thought it would be positive if the government could incentivise them to sell healthier food.

These findings should give the government confidence when it comes to taking action to reduce obesity rates. People see tackling obesity as a priority, they want action from government and they back a range of policies, including setting health targets for supermarkets. People recognise the role that supermarkets play in shaping the food they buy and consume. Thehealthy food standard announced in the 10 Year Health Plan should be seen as a positive step in the right direction, and one which the majority of the public back.

Nesta commissioned More in Common to conduct this research. It consisted of six focus groups across England (6-8 people in each) and two online surveys with participants across England, Scotland and Wales (the first with 2,000 participants and the second 4,000) in April and May 2025. The second survey contained three additional types of testing:

• A Randomised Control Trial, where respondents were randomly assigned into groups to see different types of messaging about obesity policies. Some were shown a control message and other groups a range of positive or negative messages about a proposal to give supermarkets healthy food targets. The results show the impact of different messages on participants' levels of support for the proposal.
• A MaxDiff experiment which asked participants to rank their most preferred and least preferred item. This was used to compare arguments that were most compelling for supermarket targets to reveal which arguments are most and least preferred by the public as a whole.
• A Conjoint experiment where a series of randomised policy packages are shown to participants, each time asking them to pick a preferred package. These appeared in sequence, allowing us to work out the marginal effect of adding each policy to a package in terms of how acceptable the participants find it. The conjoint analysis then ranks the added acceptability of each policy.

The surveys were representative of the Great British population and data was collected on a range of demographic factors. You can read more about the data behind the results on the More in Common website.