Council receives Children's Food Award for the 'Best Local Healthy Food Advertising Policy'

The winners were announced at Sustain’s Children’s Food Summit  Tuesday 25 February 2025 at the Abbey Centre in Westminster.

Tower Hamlets Council has been awarded a Children’s Food Award for the ‘Best Local Healthy Food Advertising Policy’.

The awards are led by the Children’s Food Campaign at Sustain – a powerful alliance working together to create a better system for food and its production.

The council implemented a Healthier Food Advertising Policy in May 2023, as a commitment to improving the health of residents, particularly children and young people.

The policy aims to prioritise promotion of healthier food options over those high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) on council-owned advertising spaces and within council advertising contracts.

Research shows exposure to food and drinks high in HFSS is linked to a strong preference for HFSS products, more snacking, eating more calories and with HFSS products replacing healthier products. 

Tower Hamlets has high rates of childhood obesity. Over 1 in 5 children in Reception have excess weight (meaning they are overweight or very overweight).

This more than doubles by Year 6, where over 2 in 5 children have excess weight. There are also significant inequalities in child excess weight levels, with higher rates reported in children from low socio-economic groups and from minority ethnic backgrounds.

Other healthy food initiatives the council has introduced include:

• Free school meals for all primary and secondary school pupils
• Food For Health: Since 2009, the Food for Health (FFH) award scheme recognises food businesses that implement healthier options for their customers
• The Tower Hamlets Food Hub redistributes enough food for 20,000 meals into the borough each month delivered by the Felix Project
• New planning policy to restrict the opening of new Hot Food Takeaways (HFT) near schools (within 200m) and in areas of high proliferation.
• Two Fruit and Vegetable Voucher Schemes have been introduced for residents on low-income.

Cllr Maium Talukdar, Deputy Mayor and Cabinet Member for Education, Youth and Lifelong Learning said:  

“Removing junk-food advertising is a huge step towards improving our environment but we know there are still big challenges. We’d like to thank all of our staff and partners that helped bring this policy into place and we will continue to work with businesses to implement it.” 

"Tower Hamlets Council joins several other London boroughs in this commitment towards banning junk food ads to create healthier, happier communities."

The judges were very impressed with the council’s leadership and impact in this space.