The Faculty of Public Health (FPH) is the standard setting body for specialists in public health in the UK. It represents 3,000 leading public health specialists in the UK and around the world, and the Royal Society for Public Health, representing over 6,000 members from a wide range of health-related professions.

All major political parties are urged to take 12 practical steps to tackle serious public health concerns from obesity and heart disease to alcohol and sexually transmitted infections. Four of these directly affect the food and drink industry.

The joint public health manifesto calls for:

1. A minimum price of 50p per unit of alcohol sold

2. No junk food advertising in pre-watershed television

3. Ban smoking in cars with children

4. Chlamydia screening for university and college freshers

5. 20 mph limit in built up areas

6. A dedicated school nurse for every secondary school

7. 25% increase in cycle lanes and cycle racks by 2015

8. Compulsory and standardised front-of-pack labelling for all pre-packaged food

9. Olympic legacy to include commitment to expand and upgrade school sports facilities and playing fields across the UK

10. Introduce presumed consent for organ donation

11. Free school meals for all children under 16

12. Stop the use of transfats

Professor Alan Maryon-Davis, President of the UK Faculty of Public Health, says:
“Each of these sensible, practical steps could have a significant impact on people’s health. Together they amount to a package of measures that could save many lives and relieve pressure on the NHS. Preventing ill-health with firm policies such as the smoking ban in cars has got to be right up there at the top of the next government's agenda. Any party that claims to be the party of the NHS has to commit to promoting and protecting health as well as healthcare - all the more so with such lean times ahead.”

Alcohol-related harm and obesity rates in Britain are nearing epidemic proportions. In England, alcohol-related hospital admissions went up by 69% between 2002 and 2007. The cost of drinking to the NHS England is estimated to be £2.7 billion. In Scotland, the death rates are double compared to the UK as a whole and the country has the highest death rate due to alcoholic liver disease in Western Europe.

Almost one in four adults in England were classed as obese in 2007, as were 17% of boys aged two to fifteen and 16% of girls.