The following is an end of year round-up from the Children's Food Campaign recently posted on the Faculty of Public Health website. It was produced by Malcolm Clark, Coordinator of the Children's Food Campaign, and shared with the BDJ.

The Children's Food Campaign (http://www.sustainweb.org/childrensfoodcampaign/) aims to improve young people's health and well-being through good food and real food education in every school, protecting children from junk food marketing, and clear food labelling that everyone including children can understand. The Campaign believes that these ideas will help to solve the current crisis in children's diets.

Children's food heroes

School Food Plan and the Department for Education

For the second year in a row, the School Food Plan comes at the top of the tree. Credit is also given to the Department of Education for 'Super September'.Revised school food standards, cooking skills and food education are all back on the curriculum for Key Stages 1-3, and universal infant free school meals have been introduced.

British Dietetic Association's Dietitians in Obesity Management Specialist Group

One of the most significant changes on the high street in 2014 was the removal of sweets and chocolates from the tills of leading supermarkets – including Lidl, Tesco and Aldi. Dietitians have been helping to lead the 'Junk Free Checkouts' campaign with additional support from Slimming World and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.

British Heart Foundation

Over 35,000 people signed a petition promoted by the British Heart Foundation to close loopholes allowing the marketing of junk food to children, calling for the introduction of a 9 pm watershed for junk food TV ads and tightening regulations around online marketing.

Emma Boyland, Rosa Whalen and Brendan Collins (University of Liverpool)

Emma and Rose conducted the research that exposed how family TV shows are saturated with junk food ads. Brendan did the number-crunching that enabled the Children's Food Campaign to announce the health impact a sugary drinks duty would have.

Barbara Goldberg, Maria Mantzorou, Jennifer Parker, James Thorneycroft and Tom Venner Woodcock

2014 Children's Food Campaign volunteers.

Children's food zeroes

Committee of Advertising Practice and the Advertising Standards Authority

These are the two organisations that make and adjudicate on marketing rules. Progress on the bigger picture, to better protect children from junk food marketing, has been slow.

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola Life, launched in 2014, is still a product that contains over four teaspoons of sugar per 330 ml can. The company also still sponsors sports events and promotes physical activity to try and 'offset' the damage of their products and pretend they are part of the solution. They have, however, signed up to the new front-of-pack nutrition labelling scheme.

The Responsibility Deal

This was the year that the Department of Health's Responsibility Deal had the chance to redeem itself, but instead fell further into disrepute. A pledge on food promotion had long been talked about, including by ministers. But the food industry wouldn't even agree to a lowest common denominator set of options and the idea was shelved. The same occurred in Scotland.

Party Health Spokespeople

With less than five months until the General Election, the Children's Food Campaign remains unconvinced that any of the political parties are going to be offering the bold policies needed to effectively tackle the obesogenic environment.