REDUCING chocolate bar sizes and cutting the level of sugar in many popular products will lead to a 20 per cent reduction in the number of children who are overweight, health officials have said.

Childhood obesity is an “urgent problem”, Public Health England (PHE) said as it set out new guidelines to help the food industry reduce the amount of sugar children consume through everyday foods.

The guidelines suggest that sugar should be cut from nine popular products through reformulating products so they contain less sugar, reducing portion sizes or helping consumers shift to low, or no added sugar alternatives.

The Government’s Childhood Obesity Plan called for a 20% reduction of sugar in the nine popular products consumed by children by 2020.

PHE said its new guidance will help industry achieve this.

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A growing row over Theresa May’s apparent threat to pull security co-operation unless Brussels agrees a trade deal is a “misunderstanding”, a Cabinet minister has insisted.

In her letter to European Council president Donald Tusk triggering Article 50, the Prime Minister warned that failure to reach a comprehensive settlement would lead to a weakening in collaboration in the fight against crime and terrorism.

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A helicopter with five people on board has gone missing over the Irish Sea.

A spokesman for the UK Coastguard said it was coordinating a search operation in the Caernarfon Bay area of North Wales.

The privately owned twin squirrel red helicopter is believed to have left Milton Keynes on Wednesday en route to Dublin, via Caernarfon Bay.

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Two filmmakers working on a BBC documentary were interviewed under police caution after a man was killed by his Staffordshire bull terrier in north London.

The victim, named locally as Mario Perivoitos, was bitten by his dog at his home in Norman Close, Wood Green, and later died from his injuries.

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