Choosing Health

The White Paper on Public Health, which covers such issues as smoking, obesity, sexual health and mental illness, has the aim of establishing an environment that encourages people to lead a healthy lifestyle. It was drawn up after a consultation exercise that involved 15,000 people and included over 1000 submissions. Amongst its proposals are: a plan to make most enclosed public areas, including offices and factories, smoke-free (only private clubs, where members voted to allow smoking, and pubs which do not serve prepared food would be exempt); a ban on junk food advertising before 9pm; traffic light coding for supermarket food; improved access to sexual health clinics; clearer labelling on alcohol; access to personal health trainers on the NHS.