Don’t blame sugar for obesity in kids

YOUR headline about obese children (Aug 25) was easily predicted. The reason for this epidemic is quite simple. People listen to experts and experts make the biggest mistakes. The first paper to report that sugar made people fat was in the late 1950s and was laughable. They studied what foods made you fat and found that all of the fattening foods had added sugar – therefore it was sugar that made you fat. They overlooked the fact that other foods had sugar added but those did not produce obesity! Two later studies, instead of being scientific forays, mereley sought to prove the original theory. Because fluoride is put in our drinking water I switched from my seven to ten cups of tea a day to coffee. However I did not like the taste of coffee so I added five heaped spoonfuls of sugar to my cup each time. I continued with that mixture for over 43 years! I only stopped when my blood sugar level reached seven and I was adjudged to be diabetic (I cut down to five cups with three level spoonfuls and am now at 52 on the new measure). My weight did not fluctuate by more than a pound during that time of sugary plenty. We have seven children between us and all of them had plenty of sugar – and none of them was overweight, nor did they have dummies. Giving a baby a dummy to shut it up is an invite to the child to accept that solace comes from a mouthful of whatever is available. This of course translates to over-eating once weaned. The obvious error of the experts was to not look for other possible sources of fat production which in that case was carbohydrates. This error still exists within the experts’ realm as they are incapable of accepting that they are wrong. M T Hancock Wyken

Raise concerns at your ward forum

IT is very important for residents to meet their local councillors and to raise any question they wish. We shall therefore hold a Westwood Ward Forum from 7pm to 9pm on Tuesday, September 18 at Westwood Academy, Mitchell Avenue. We are working out a precise agenda, but it will no doubt include housing, parking and road safety. We hope that police and fire service officers and a representative of Warwick University will speak. With the (unwelcome) end of the previous official system, Cllr Tim Mayer, Cllr David Skinner and I are making the arrangements ourselves. We are very grateful that we are being allowed free use of the Westwood Academy premises. We hope that many residents in Westwood ward will come along. We need their views. Councillor Marcus Lapsa (Con) Westwood ward

leading politicians make bad moves

IN Africa, Theresa May has found that she is not a professional dancer.

What a surprise. While Jeremy Corbyn has two left feet, as you would expect! Ian Harris Radford