Health committee  I think type 2 diabetes is relatively uncommon amongst children. Obviously, with increasing body weight, the risk goes up, but most of the children would not acquire it until their late 20s or 30s. I do think monitoring weight, particularly waist circumference, is important, but I think it needs to be anonymized.

Health committee  Can I just comment about biometric data? Weighing children and taking measurements is an area of great sensitivity. Certainly, probably the most reliable measurement of adiposity is waist measurement. This doesn't require coming into quite close contact with children. Girls in particular are very sensitive about that.

Health committee  They're not being individually tailored. It's almost like being weighed at the checkout and then being told that this is your calorie load. There has been a very large cross-sectional study in the U.K., looking at doing these measurements relative to height and weight and seeing if eating behaviours are different between children who are overweight and those who are not overweight.

Health committee  Can I just follow along on the breakfast cereals? Children are unlikely to get fat from eating breakfast cereals, simply because breakfast cereals are not that high in calories and the amounts consumed aren't high. The sugar concern is mainly one about rotting their teeth, rather than actually being one about obesity.

Health committee  It's exactly the same as for alcohol labelling and whether you talk in units with alcohol. For example, if you take the comparable with alcohol, you can have spirits at a higher concentration or you can have beer, but it's the number of units of alcohol that matter.

Health committee  I think there has been public support for restrictions on controlling confectionery, soft drink, and crisps advertising targeted at children generally. I think there have been some casualities from this across-the-board ban. One of the ones that's quite interesting is that cheese--we can't advertise Canadian cheddar cheese, I'm afraid, on British TV now in the watershed hours of children.

Health committee  I think it's a very important point. Most food still in the U.K. is consumed in the home rather than at school. Children now are able to get very palatable food prepared very quickly in relatively large proportions. They can take a pizza out of the fridge, put it in the microwave, and eat it quite quickly.

Health committee  I would agree there. I think the issues about types of fat in the diet are mainly to do with cardiovascular risk rather than total calorie intake. Foods that are very high in fat are likely to be high in calories. It depends on the proportions that are consumed. I think there really is an issue about portion sizing.

Health committee  I think, unfortunately, in the United Kingdom sport has become a spectator activity, where people buy expensive clothing to sit on the sofa and watch it on television rather than participate in it.

Health committee  I think one of the problems with the GDA model for the front of the pack is numerical. We did, at one stage, propose to the Food Standards Agency that they might consider using certain bandings of GDA, to use a colour coding rather than the amounts per 100 grams. So it would be a hybrid sort of methodology.

Health committee  I think it's a point well made. I think when we're considering advice about food for children, the foremost thing we are concerned about is that they have an adequate diet. To look at the implications of labelling, if it demonizes certain foods.... The foods we're particularly concerned with are dairy products.

Health committee  With the food industry, one of my roles has been as an advisor to a charity called Heart UK, which is concerned mainly about inherited forms of cardiac disease. It has been persuading the food industry to make cuts in salt in their foods, and particularly in the saturated fat content of their foods.

Health committee  Hello. I am a professor of nutrition and dietetics at King's College, London. I have over 30 years' experience working in nutrition science. My observation on childhood obesity is that the epidemic has occurred in the United Kingdom and other countries despite any changes in the relative proportions of fat or sugar in diets.

Health committee  Hello. I am Professor Tom Sanders from King's College, London.