I attended a meeting organised by a charity who caters for young people with learning difficulties in the London area. I learned about the increasing risk of obesity that young people with learning disabilities face as a result of the higher cost of living and the parents’ inability to provide a healthy diet for their child. 

It shows that healthy eating, which was subject to a lot of debate a few years ago has not gone away. Indeed, obesity in the United Kingdom affects a high number of people as a result of aggressive advertisements and the increasing use of social media by young people. 

For medical reasons, a lot of young people with learning disabilities do not always have the capacities or the ability to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy food advertisements. Furthermore, unhealthy food advertisements are cheaper and ‘attractive’ by the way they are presented on TV and social media. Adverts make it difficult for young people to resist and quite often it puts pressure on their parents into buying junk food to satisfy their child and have ‘breathing space’.

The high cost of living also makes it difficult for families to take their children to activities in the community that could have helped them burn some calories. We assist in the risk of weight gain that can lead to obesity and other health issues such as heart diseases, diabetes or cancer and to premature death.

I would recommend that the government raise the prices of junk food and also to ask junk food companies to pay more tax; the money raised can help provide medical care when people get sick from eating junk food.

I will also recommend for parents to engage in physical activities with their children like walking to the park or walking to local shops. It can take some time for the young people to get used to the new regime but they definitely get used to it.