Firms earn £53bn a year from UK smoking, excess drinking and junk food – study

Are these the 1 billion pounds a week, that are going to the NHS?

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Firms are earning £52.7bn a year from UK sales of tobacco, junk food and excessive alcohol, and their consumption is contributing to Britain’s rising tide of illness, a report says.

The figures prompted a coalition of health, medical and children’s organisations to demand an urgent crackdown on “the irresponsible behaviour of health-harming industries”.

The manufacturers were making vast profits by bombarding consumers with marketing and deliberately obstructing efforts by the government to restrict their activities, such as seeking to discredit scientific evidence of harm.

For example, they calculated that 28.8% of all food bought by UK households is unhealthy because it breaches government dietary guidelines for fat, salt or sugar (HFSS).

Similarly, they found that 43.4% of all alcohol consumed in the UK is drunk by people exceeding the government’s safe drinking guidelines of 14 units a week, and is thus potentially harmful.

“Tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy food are causing significant harm to our society,” said Prof Sir Ian Gilmore, the chair of the AHA and president of the British Medical Association.

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