A campaign by town hall chiefs and chef Jamie Oliver is calling on support from the business sector.

Lewisham People Power is being harnessed to start a social movement to reduce the amount of sugar residents eat – the latest phase of the Lewisham Sugar Smart campaign.

Sugar Smart Lewisham is a joint campaign with the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation and the food charity Sustain. The campaign asks organisations and businesses to reduce the amount of food and drink containing sugar that they sell or provide to their customers, patients and students.

At the campaign launch held on November 21 at Goldsmiths, University of London, Sir Steve Bullock, Mayor of Lewisham, called on residents to lobby local organisations and businesses to join the campaign.

He was joined by Lewisham council’s director of public health, Dr Danny Ruta, who said: “Lewisham is still in the grip of an obesity epidemic that stubbornly refuses to subside. The latest statistics show that in reception year, over 22 per cent of our children are overweight or obese. By Year 6, this figure has increased to 39 per cent.

This obesity epidemic is a normal response of people to an abnormal environment. People haven’t become greedier or lazier: the food available to us has changed. And one of the biggest changes has been the amount of sugar that surrounds us.”