Scotland
Deep Fried Mars Bars
Scotland has a poor reputation for food and nutrition and the image of a nation consuming deep fried mars bars, fish suppers, irn bru and partial to a wee dram persists. Yet Scotland also has a fabulous food culture with world class products -, salmon, Aberdeen Angus, scallops, mussels, fine cheeses, oatcakes, porridge, raspberries and strawberries to name a few. These two images illustrate the inequalities in diet and the inequalities in health that persist in Scottish society.
Context
The Scottish Diet Action Plan was published in 1996 and made recommendations for a multisectoral, life courses approach to improving the Scottish Diet. So it made 71 recommendations which covered every step of the food chain from producers to manufacturers, retailers, caterers, and included every sector including education, NHS, local authorities, local authorities and the community. The 3 main outcomes from this report were:
The development of the ‘Scottish Community Diet Project’ - this has been a key mover and shaker in the development, funding and evaluation of community food projects.
Healthy Choices Award – a nationally developed award for caterers
The responsibility that was handed down to Health Boards for implementation of the SDAP.
It wasn’t until after devolution that a Scottish Food and Health Co-ordinator was appointed at the Scottish Executive (one of the key recommendations of the ’96 report). Anyone who attended the CNG conference this year can be in no doubt of the difference this has made to Scotland. Finally, some work is happening with manufacturers, retailers, education and beyond.
Improving Health in Scotland: The Challenge was published in March 2003 and sought to promote a step change in health improvement – by society and individuals, and set out a framework to support the delivery of more rapid health improvement. It focused around 4 themes: early years; teenage transition; the workplace; and communities. Healthy Eating is one of the seven special focus programmes.
Eating for Health (2004) updated the SDAP in line with ‘The Challenge’ to set out new structures and plans to further develop food and health policy in Scotland.
This year has seen a review of the original SDAP against the targets and progress it laid out for 2006 in 1996 and we await the outcome of this review to be published soon.
Oatcakes on Griddle
Nutritional Guidance for the Early Years – published by the Scottish Executive (2006) detailing nutrition guidelines for all early education and childcare providers who supply food to children in their care (snacks, meals and drinks). Care commission officers will be using the advice in this guidance to inform their inspections. Health Scotland are developing training and support for local providers to translate this guidance into practice.
Improving the health and nutrition of Scotland’s children; consultation on the Schools (nutrition and health) (scotland) bill – this is proposed legislation for all in food in schools based on ‘Hungry for Success’ (nutrition guidance for school meals).
There has been huge investment in school meals in Scotland and huge improvements in the quality of school meals. All local authority school meals must meet defined nutritional guidelines and many ingredients must comply with defined specifications. Uptake of schools meals must also be addressed by decreasing queues, improving dining rooms, improving pupils consultations etc etc. A key ‘motivator’ in Hungry for Success (H4S) was the inclusion of the school meals service in HMI of Schools.
This bill extends H4S to include all food in schools from that served at breakfast club to the school disco. Consultation closes on the 1st August 2006. www.scotland.gov.uk.
Food and Health Alliance – this was developed by the Food Standards Agency Scotland and the Scottish Executive in 2005 and has over 600 members from a variety of sectors. Health Scotland has appointed a co-ordinator and is looking to develop the Alliance to support the implementation of national food and health policy in Scotland.
Draft National Infant Feeding Strategy – has closed for consultation.
Links:
Scottish health on the web – gives details and links to all the health boards including Health Scotland . Health Scotland works at national level to support organisation, policy makers, communities and individuals to take actions to improve health and reduce inequalities in Scotland. The Scottish Community Diet Project's over-riding aim is to help improve Scotland's diet and health. They do this by supporting work within low-income communities which improves access to and take-up of a healthy diet. They support both community initiatives and inter-agency partnership working and offer: a grants scheme for community initiatives; toolkits and guides for groups to use; information exchange and networking facilitation; development of partnership working models; and support action research and practice development.