Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-01-31-Speech-3-180"
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"en.20070131.22.3-180"2
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".
Mr President, I should like straightaway to start by thanking my fellow shadow rapporteurs, who are present: Mr Bushill-Matthews, Mrs McAvan, Mrs Evans, Mrs Sinnott and Mrs Belohorská. I must say that my contact with them has been particularly intense and fruitful since my appointment as rapporteur, nine months ago.
Furthermore, I regret that our debates are, as I see it, far too focused on the issue of banning television advertisements for food and drinks that are high in sugar, salt and fat from being broadcast during children’s programmes. It seems to me that this debate has largely been settled by our vote on the revision of the Television without Frontiers Directive in December 2006 – very recently, then. That is the point expressed very precisely by our compromise amendment 5. For my part, too, I would have difficulty explaining to a mother the logic of a policy that bans television advertising for, for example, chocolate bars but that, on the other hand, authorises the same advertising on the Internet or on the big screen, and that is the reasoning behind our paragraph 24.
To conclude, Mr President, I am convinced that all of us here, in this House, share the same desire. Firstly, to halt this epidemic, by making discernable progress in four or five years, particularly where children are concerned. Secondly, we need to try to reverse this trend by 2015 at the latest, through ambitious policies at every level of power, including at European level. That is why we expect a great deal from you, Commissioner Kyprianou, and of the forthcoming White Paper, too, which you will be presenting to us in the spring.
I quote some particularly striking figures in this report: 38% of women, 27% of men and almost five million children in the EU are obese, with between 300 000 and 400 000 new cases of obesity recorded among our youngest children each year. This is both a simple and a terrible situation. In 2000, the WHO defined obesity as the major health problem of the countries of the West. How could it be otherwise when, on average, 6% of the national healthcare budgets are devoted to all those diseases that are caused by a person’s being overweight: type 2 diabetes, breathing problems, heart problems and other kinds of problems? Over and above these figures, it is important to add and to spell out that the most worrying thing is the fact that this disease is now on the increase.
There is an initial observation to be made, which we all agree on: we have not reacted in time and, when I say ‘we’, I am indeed referring to governments, to boards of health and education and indeed to us, as parents.
My second observation, which is just as obvious, is that it is not easy to fight effectively against obesity and all its consequences for people’s health. That requires a global, holistic approach, which takes account of such varied factors as heredity, lifestyle and education in terms of eating a balanced and varied diet, and this from as early an age as possible. A person’s family and professional background is a crucial factor. We cannot overlook the fact that job insecurity and poverty are factors that sometimes trigger or, in any case, cause a further rise in, obesity.
My third observation is that we are not starting from scratch. There are currently sixty or so initiatives on the prevention of obesity and the promotion of physical activity that benefit from or warrant monitoring at European level, such as Fleurbaix and Laventie and Food Dudes, to name but two.
As has been said time and again, when it comes to this fight, Europe does not just have something to say; it has a huge contribution to make. If Europe’s aim is to provide real added value, it needs to integrate nutrition and physical activity into the other Community policies, and to do so across the board, in areas in which, fortunately, the European Union’s largest budgets are concentrated: the common agricultural policy, the seventh research framework programme and the structural funds. I am also delighted that, as part of the reform of the COM in fruit and vegetables that was launched last week by Commissioner Fischer Boel, one of the seven priorities – the seven major objectives – was to promote people’s consumption of this type of highly nutritious food.
For my part, I should like to repeat in this House, as I did in the report, that I prefer an incentive policy, price cuts, tax reductions or other kind of subsidy, to any system resembling a tax on calorific products that is of the ‘fat tax’ kind, because, ultimately, such a system would penalise the lowest income households in Europe the most.
I am pleased with all of the compromises we have reached in our work on important points in this report. I will not mention them all, but I will, however, mention one or two of them. The compromise on paragraph 4, which recommends that, like the WHO, all the Member States officially recognise obesity as a chronic disease: this is a strong demand, backed by patients’ associations, which we have a duty to pass on; it is also undoubtedly the surest way of preventing certain kinds of people in our society from being stigmatised and of ensuring that healthcare systems provide a reasonable level of care. The compromise on paragraphs 16 and 17, next, which point out the importance of schools in terms of teaching children how to lead healthy lives – whether they are in the school canteen or on the sports field. The compromise on paragraph 30 lastly, on the urgent need to do as we propose and implement a simplified and harmonised form of labelling foodstuffs that are high in salt, sugar and certain fats.
I should also like to make it clear that I agree with the Socialist Group in the European Parliament and the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance when they attack foods and drinks that are too high in calories. Yes, we must stop this slightly tiresome political correctness that leads to inaction. Who can still believe and declare today that, from a nutritional point of view, there are not good foods and bad foods? The fact that there are bad foods highlights why it is also important for the European Union to get to grips with reducing people’s consumption of saturated fats – which is the subject of our paragraph 28 – as they are responsible for bad cholesterol and, by extension, for a whole host of cardiovascular diseases."@en1
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