Jamie tells Boris: Fight obesity now
JAMIE Oliver is urging Boris Johnson to back radical moves to promote healthy food and combat obesity.
The celebrity chef, 45, wants business rates cut to zero for companies that sell healthy food. He also wants a 9pm watershed for adverts about unhealthy food.
He said: “This gives Boris a massive opportunity to change the health trajectory of millions of kids.
“To use Boris’s own words: the policies are oven-ready, so let’s get on with it and put child health at the heart of the Government’s upcoming strategy.”
He praised Tony Blair for funding school meals and George Osborne and David Cameron for introducing a sugar tax. But he added: “There has to be a recognition that this is a massive public health issue and, crucially, that the Government needs to act.
“It looks like Boris has definitely realised the massive importance of this issue and I’m really pleased about that.”
The Prime Minister has changed his stance on obesity since he contracted Covid-19 and ended up in intensive care earlier this year.
He is encouraging the nation to shed some pounds to better their chances of surviving the virus if they catch it and has been spotted running several times in recent weeks. Speaking last week, Mr Johnson said that he had dropped his “very libertarian” view on obesity. However, he did not commit to any specific measures, saying the “arguments need to be gone through” on tax and on other measures.
Meanwhile, a report published yesterday warned a healthy diet is too expensive for many families and more pressure should be put on the food industry to cut sugar, salt and unhealthy fats to save the NHS billions.
The research, published by the House of Lords’ Food, Poverty, Health and Environment Committee, said the pandemic should be a “wake-up call” for urgent action.