The Scottish Government supports NHS Scotland‘s Health Boards implement a standardised approach to Child Healthy Weight programmes through funding for Tier 2 and Tier 3 pathways as part of the delivery of Scotland’s Diet and Healthy Weight Plan

Health Boards deliver weight management services in line with Public Health Scotland Standards Weight Management Standards. These standards were introduced in 2019 and aim to ensure a fair and equal approach to the treatment of overweight and obesity for children, young people and adults across weight management services in Scotland.

Health boards delivering weight management interventions work to ensure that programmes are tailored to the specific needs of their local populations by conducting robust needs assessments, consulting with local communities and frontline staff, and addressing barriers related to equality, diversity, and inclusion. This includes conducting Equality Impact Assessment to continuously improve service accessibility and effectiveness.

All Health Boards provide data via Public Health Scotland on their weight management service’s performance and outcomes. This data is published regularly.

Public Health Scotland are undertaking an evaluation of the implementation and impact of the Standards for weight management services with recommendations to inform local action and national policy direction.

According to the 2022 Scottish Health Survey, 23% of children who live in most deprived areas are at risk of obesity, compared with 15% in the least deprived. Addressing the risk of obesity and its associated health conditions is therefore a key priority for the Scottish Government in reducing health inequalities for those on lower incomes.

We have provided core funding of £8.25 million to health boards to continue to deliver adult, children and young people’s weight management services in 2024-25.

Our aim to halve childhood obesity by 2030 and significantly reduce diet related health inequalities is deliberately ambitious. A Whole Systems Approach to childhood obesity remains the strongest evidence-based route to improving levels of healthy weight in children.

However, dealing only with the consequences of poor diet and higher weight is not enough. We also need to address the underlying causes. This includes ending poverty, supporting fair wages, and improving our physical and social environments. Since 2022-23, we continue to allocate around £3bn a year to policies which tackle poverty and protect people as far as possible during the ongoing cost of living crisis.

With particular reference to child poverty, our Scottish Child Payment provides £26.70 per eligible child per week – support that is only available in Scotland.

Effective approaches to preventing childhood obesity are focused on population-level measures, and therefore it is important that we can track progress on child healthy weight across our communities.

The universal health visiting pathway includes growth assessment of all children at several points across early childhood and supports interventions that promote healthy growth.

Public Health Scotland and Scottish Directors of Public Health established a short life working group, including expertise from local boards and PHS, to consider the Primary 1 BMI surveillance https://publichealthscotland.scot/population-health/early-years-and-young-people/child-health-data-and-intelligence/child-weight-and-growth/routine-health-review/ model and to catalyse work to improve P1 measurement data usability and coverage.

Robust data is really important not only to exhibit the effectiveness of our policies but to inform continuous improvement. We welcome Public Health Scotland and the wider public health system’s continued support on the range of data that underpins our policies.

Scottish Government are taking forward a range of actions across five key outcomes: giving children the best start in life; creating a healthier food environment; better access to weight management services; leadership and reducing health inequalities.

This includes our continued support for convenience stores to increase the accessibility of fruit and vegetables in more deprived areas, supporting businesses to reformulate their products to make them healthier, and maintaining funding to community food networks, to enable them to increase access to affordable, healthier food to their communities and to promote the health benefits of nutrition and physical activity.

Specifically, regarding children, we have updated the Nutritional Requirements for Food and Drink in Schools (Scotland) Regulations, strengthening the provision of balanced and nutritious food to children.

Our Scottish Milk and Healthy Snack Scheme promotes good nutrition to support healthy physical and brain development through the provision of healthy drinks and snacks in the earliest years. We have continued provision of free vitamin D to children under three, and pregnant and breastfeeding women.

Over the last 6 years, in addition to the core funding provided to Boards to support maternal and infant nutrition, we have invested more than £10 million to promote, protect and support breastfeeding to help give children the best possible start in life. Breastfeeding rates at 6-8 weeks are now at 47%. Infant feeding statistics - Financial year 2022 to 2023 - Infant feeding statistics - Publications - Public Health Scotland the highest they have been since records began.

The consultation on the draft national Good Food Nation Plan sets out the indicators and other measures that will be used to measure progress towards achieving the six Outcomes set out in the Plan. This included extending the Scottish Government’s existing target to halve childhood obesity by 2030 to read: “To aim to halve childhood obesity by 2030 and significantly reduce associated diet-related inequalities”.

The Scottish Government is undertaking work to develop further indicators of progress towards meeting the Outcomes. This work will take account of the responses received to the consultation which suggested indicators that might be used.

Once the final version of the Plan is published there is a legislative requirement to report on the progress towards achieving the Outcomes set out in the national Good Food Nation Plan every two years and to review and, if necessary, revise the Plan within five years.

As reported in the Scottish Health Survey Supporting documents - The Scottish Health Survey 2022 – volume 1: main report - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) there has already been a significant decline in children’s consumption of non-diet soft drinks once a day or more, from 38% in 2008-2009 to 16% in 2017-2018, and to 5% in 2021-2022.

The Scottish Government recognises that there is much that still needs to be done to further reduce children’s sugary soft drinks consumption, especially in low-income areas. We continue to support the UK Government’s Soft Drink Industry Levy, recognising the positive impact this has made in reducing sugary soft drinks consumption and incentivising industry reformulation.

The Scottish Government is delivering a range of initiatives to further improve the access and affordability of healthier food and drink options, helping children, especially those in deprived areas, to develop healthier nutritional habits that will last them a lifetime. This includes continued support of the Healthy Living Programme, the Nutritional Requirements for Food and Drink in Schools (Scotland) Regulations and the Scottish Milk and Healthy Snack Scheme(SMHSS) Milk and Healthy Snack Scheme - Maternal and child health - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The public consultation on the detail of proposed regulations to restrict promotions of food and drink high in fat, sugar or salt closed on 21 May 2024. The consultation paper sought views on proposals for the implementation and enforcement of regulations.

Independent analysis of the consultation responses is underway. The feedback received will be used as part of the policy decision-making process, alongside a range of other available information and evidence to help ensure the regulations are proportionate and effective.

Legislation to restrict promotions is part of a wide range of action, set out in our Diet and Healthy Weight Delivery Plan, to improve diet and help create a food environment which better supports healthier choices.

This includes, amongst other things, ongoing support for the Healthy Living and Reformulation for Health Programmes, both of which are helping to increase the availability of healthier options. We are also working with Public Health Scotland and Food Standard Scotland to implement our Out of Home Action Plan.

Scottish Government have long advocated for restrictions on the broadcast advertising of less healthy food and drink before 9pm. We welcome the announcement that the UK Government intend to introduce these restrictions next year. We continue to work with the UK Government to further understand the implications of this policy and its implementation for Scotland.

As set out in our 2018 Diet and Healthy Weight Delivery plan, we remain committed to developing proposals to strengthen outdoor advertising restrictions for food that is high in fat, salt or sugar.

The first national Good Food Nation Plan represents a fresh approach to food policy and it embeds long-term strategic transformation into decision making at both the national and local levels. The consultation draft of the national Plan set out the six overarching Good Food Nation Outcomes to achieve our ambitions for Scotland’s food system. Draft Outcomes 1 and 3 set out the high-level aspirations in relation to health and diet related inequalities:

Outcome 1 - Everyone in Scotland eats well with reliable access to safe, nutritious, affordable, sustainable, and age and culturally appropriate food.

Outcome 3 - Scotland’s food system encourages a physically and mentally healthy population, leading to a reduction in diet-related conditions.

These Outcomes will be updated and refined based on the consultation responses received before the draft Plan is laid before Parliament in 2025.

Scottish Ministers will need to have regard to the national Good Food Nation Plan when carrying out specified functions in relation to food ensuring a clear, consistent and coherent approach to food policy across policy areas and ministerial portfolios. This approach ensures connections are made between policy areas so that complex issues such as child obesity and diet-related inequalities will be considered in the context of wider food system challenges. As part of this joined up approach the Ministerial Working Group on Food supports cross-Government work to drive progress across portfolios on issues relating to food policy.

The Scottish Government does not recommend active dieting and weight loss interventions in pregnancy.

There is strong evidence that breastfeeding is one of the most important things that a mother can do to give her baby the best nutritional start in life and can also be a means of preventing obesity among infants and young children.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting women to breastfeeding and have demonstrated this by providing additional investment of more than £10m for breastfeeding support services over the past six years, in addition to our core funding to Boards to improve maternal and infant nutrition.

Health Boards deliver weight management services in line with Public Health Scotland Standards Weight Management Standards. These standards were introduced in 2019 and aim to ensure a fair and equal approach to the treatment of overweight and obesity for children, young people and adults across weight management services in Scotland.

Health boards delivering weight management interventions work to ensure that programmes are tailored to the specific needs of their local populations by conducting robust needs assessments, consulting with local communities and frontline staff, and addressing barriers related to equality, diversity, and inclusion. This includes conducting Equality Impact Assessment to continuously improve service accessibility and effectiveness.