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Hospital crackdown on unhealthy snacking

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Hospital crackdown on unhealthy snacking

Hospital shops, canteens and vending machines will no longer sell ‘super sized’ chocolate bars and all sweets and chocolate on offer should be 250 calories or under, NHS England says.

The new proposals also want 75% of pre-packed sandwiches to be under 400 calories and pre-packed savoury meals to contain no more than 5g of saturated fat (per 100g), while 80% of drinks stocked must have less than 5g of added sugar (per 100ml).

Hospitals will be given a cash boost for facilitating the change.

While broadly welcomed, campaigners say that more still needs to be done. Helen Dickens, assistant director of campaigns and mobilisation at Diabetes UK, commented: “It’s great to see the NHS taking steps to help make it easy as possible for us all to make healthier choices – particularly for those in hospital –  and in doing so reduce our risk of Type 2 diabetes, a serious health condition that can lead to devastating and costly amputations such as blindness, amputation and stroke. We look forward to seeing more information on how it will work in practice.

“However this is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to tackling obesity. We need to go much further, which is why we are also calling for the Government to toughen restrictions on junk food marketing to children, end price promotions on unhealthy foods and introduce mandatory front of pack food labelling. We need to act now for the sake of our nation’s health.”

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