Ministers will also consult on proposals to help parents of young children to make healthier choices through more honest marketing and labelling of infant foods.
The move comes as the Department of Health and Social Care unveiled a new obesity strategy and a ‘Better Health’ campaign to help people lose weight.
The new measures proposed include:
The Government said that the urgency of tackling the obesity ‘time bomb’ had been highlighted by evidence of the link to an increased risk from Covid-19.
Living with excess weight puts people at greater risk of serious illness or death from Covid-19, with risk growing substantially as body mass index (BMI) increases. Nearly 8 per cent of critically ill patients with Covid-19 in intensive care units have been morbidly obese, compared with 2.9 per cent of the general population.
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