RESHAPING PUBLIC OPINION –

BEST PRACTICE AND LESSONS

LEARNT FROM OTHER

INDUSTRIES

“Sugar- the new Tobacco”?

simonroperconsultancy.com

Obesity - Public health enemy No. 1

“Obesity is now a critical global issue, requiring a

comprehensive intervention strategy rolled out at

scale. …

The global economic impact from obesity is roughly

$2.0 trillion,… roughly equivalent to the global impact

from smoking or armed violence, war, and terrorism”.

McKinsey 2014

“It’s a national emergency.”

Jeremy Hunt, UK Health Minister, 2016

Science

• “Obesity is a complex and incompletely understood disease…” WHO Report Obesity:

Preventing and Managing the Global Epidemic,2000

• Fat under fire- low fat category

• Switch to sugar

- Lustig et al 2009

- Sugar at the Crossroads, Credit Suisse 2013

- WHO Dietary Guidelines 2015

Campaigns focus on Sugar

• Action on Sugar, Robert Lustig, Marion Nestle, Jamie

Oliver

• Simplify - reduce sugar consumption

• Target Freedom to choose

- Processed food - “spiked with sugar” “toxic”

- Addiction

- Children

• Media

Globalisation

• WHO

- Non Communicable Disease Strategy

- Childhood Obesity Commission

- Dietary Guidelines 2015

• World Obesity Federation

- http://www.worldobesity.org

Target Industry

Marion Nestle

Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and

Winning) (2015)

“Drinks companies must also reckon

with a small army of health advocates,

among which Ms Nestle is a major-

general.”

The Economist 2015

Business vs Health

“...it is not just Big Tobacco anymore. Public health

must also contend with Big Food, Big Soda, and Big

Alcohol. All of these industries fear regulation, and

protect themselves by using the same tactics.”

Dr Margaret Chan,

Director General WHO, 2013

Tobacco Wars

• Science debate

- Causation

- Addiction

• Campaign Groups- ASH, Campaign for Tobacco

Free Kids

• “War” declared

Courtroom Dramas - regulation by litigation

Tobacco continued

• Globalisation (WHO) FCTC 2005

“Just as the mosquito is the disease vector for malaria,

the tobacco industry is the disease vector for the tobacco

epidemic.”

• Regulate - “4 Ps plus”

• Demonise - product, industry and consumers

Lessons Learned

• External environment

- Perception and reality - mud sticks

- Manage what matters

- Reputation

Lessons learned continued

• Internal

- Management

- Staff

- Suppliers

Sugar - Outlook

• Focus of Obesity efforts

• Campaign groups - ascendant

• Media - not yet sated

• Children - focus of regulation

• Governments increasingly engaged

Getting nastier?

• “While the government sees food and

alcohol companies as partners in

health policy, public health increasingly

recognises them as vectors of

disease.”

Anna Gilmour (Professor of Public

Health, University of Bath)

• “Sugar Coated” video - compares food

and tobacco

sugar coated trailer

Conclusions

• Sugar has time, but..

• McKinsey Report - 74

“interventions”

• Manage what matters - strategy

aligned

• Reputation and Regulation –

balance

• Own organisation - fit for the future?

More information

May issue International Sugar Journal,

“Sugar and Obesity: How did the issue get here and

where are is it going?”

simonroperconsultancy.com

Discussion Slides

McKinsey- Obesity levers

PHE - Sugar Reduction Steps

• the volume and number of price promotions in retail

and restaurants

• the marketing and advertising of high sugar products

to children

• the sugar content in and portion size of everyday

food and drink products

The review also suggests consideration of a price

increase, through a tax or a levy, as a means of

reducing sugar intake, though this is likely to be less

effective than the three measures set out above.”

Children

Video produced by Cancer Research during UK

debate on plain packaging:

Campaign for plain, standardised cigarette

packaging