JUNK FOOD IN HOSPITALS

That this House welcomes the motion passed overwhelmingly at the British Medical Association’s annual meeting in Edinburgh on 27 June 2013 to ban the sale of all junk foods in hospitals; backs the campaign by Dr Aseem Malhotra and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, representing the UK’s 220,000 doctors professionally, urging hospitals to sell only healthy products; notes that there has been a four-fold increase in the number of children and teenagers admitted to hospital for obesity-related conditions in the last decade and that hospitals should set an example; and calls on the Department of Health to issues guidelines prohibiting the sale of junk food and fast food franchises in hospitals.