3. Statement by the Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing: Healthy Weight, Healthy Wales 2022-2024

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:28 pm on 1 March 2022.

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Photo of Lynne Neagle Lynne Neagle Labour 3:28, 1 March 2022

Thank you very much, Jenny, for your welcome, and thank you too for your continued commitment in this area of work. It is really very much appreciated, and I recognise that we've got a lot of work to do in terms of encouraging children and young people to eat more healthily.

Yesterday I was at Ysgol-y-Graig Primary School in Cefn Coed in Merthyr for the start of Veg Power's 'Eat Them To Defeat Them' series of lessons. I was able to watch the children having a variety of different lessons, right up from nursery all the way through the foundation phase, and they were learning about vegetables, obviously some of which they had never seen. We are continuing to support the Veg Power initiative, but also, of course, we've got our new curriculum coming on stream, which is a huge opportunity with our health and well-being area of learning and experience. The strength of that is that it won't just compartmentalise these things into specific lessons. This will be an approach across the curriculum to make sure that our children have the opportunity not just to learn about what's healthy, but also to implement some of those things as well.

You mentioned the commitment on free school meals; absolutely, we're committed to reviewing the nutritional standards. At the moment, Estyn are meant to look at how schools comply with the nutritional standards. As part of that work, I'd be very keen to have discussions with the education Minister to make sure that Estyn has a continued focus in this area, because it is incredibly important.

You mentioned the importance of maternity, and national priority area 3 in our delivery plan is designed to support the best start in life, to enable families to make positive choices from pre-pregnancy to early years. It's very much recognised as a priority in the plan, and as part of that, we're going to be strengthening the work to make sure that pregnant women can access the all-Wales weight management pathway to support maternal obesity. We've also got a range of initiatives to encourage and promote the importance of being a healthy weight before pregnancy, and of healthy weight gain during pregnancy, through the maternity key performance indicators, including ensuring access to a Foodwise in Pregnancy app.

You also referred to the importance of breastfeeding. That is now going to sit underneath as a key part of our 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' strategy, and we've got a breastfeeding action plan. Some of the work on that was paused due to COVID, but that is now going to be recommencing. I'm really keen to see that delivered at pace, with targets and milestones that we can ensure that we meet.