Question reference: S4W-27619
- Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 22 September 2015
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Current status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 1 October 2015
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to reduce child health inequalities, and what its position is on the finding in the Scottish Health Survey 2014 that children in deprived areas are more likely to have unhealthy eating habits and be overweight.
Answer
Equally Well, the report of the Ministerial Task Force on Health Inequalities, shifted the emphasis of our approach from dealing with the consequences of health inequalities to tackling the underlying causes of poverty and employment while providing support for families to improve physical and social environments. This has been reflected in the latest Programme for Government published at the beginning of September 2015. More specifically for children the Government’s commitment is set out in our revised Child Poverty Strategy for Scotland which introduced a framework to measure progress against key outcomes.
We have also made a fundamental shift to focus on preventative spending with our Early Years Framework and the Getting it Right for Every Child approach places a strong emphasis on giving children, particularly those who are most disadvantaged, the best possible start in life to make a real difference to their future health and life chances and significant proportions of government programmes concerning healthy weight and diet are focused on our most deprived communities.