Christina PATTERSON
It’s quite the conversion. The man who, just a year ago, was attacking “the continuing creep of the nanny state” appears set to become the nation’s Nanny-in-chief. In July last year, Boris Johnson announced a review of “sin taxes” – taxes on sugary, salty and fatty foods – and declared that they “clobber those who can least afford it”. People should be free to eat what they like, buy what they like, enjoy what they like. But that was before he fell seriously ill with Covid-19, partly, he believes, because he was a “fatty”.
Now our PM has the missionary zeal of one who was blind, but now sees. And you can, by the way, go blind from diabetes, which directly affects around four million people in this country, and is likely to affect around five million by 2025. You get type 2 diabetes, to be blunt, by being fat. Obese people are around 80 times more likely to develop this form of the illness than people who are not overweight. They are much more likely to die of a heart attack or a stroke. And they are, according to some studies, twice as likely to die of Covid-19.
Johnson hasn’t yet announced a “world-beating” anti-obesity strategy, but then he hasn’t yet announced the strategy. From the early indications, it seems it will be fierce. There will be bans on television junk food adverts before 9pm. There may be bans on having sweets and chocolates at the end of supermarket aisles or by tills. There may even be bans on “buy one, get one free” offers.
What none of this addresses, though, is how we eat. Food, in this country, as in much of the Western world, has gone from something you eat at a table to something you munch on the sofa, at a desk, on a bus, on the Tube, on the hoof. It’s a comfort blanket, made largely from chemicals, a consolation, a drug and treat. We drip-feed ourselves sugar and salt, which only makes us crave it more. And I speak as someone who eats far too many Kettle Chips.
We are not quite “world-beating” in our obesity rates, but we are the second fattest nation in Europe. And it’s not because we love our food. Italians love their pasta, ice cream and pizza. They might have breakfast at a bar. They might have an aperitivo before dinner. They have the aperitivo to whet the appetite. Which they still have, because they don’t snack. They love their food at least as much as we do, and they are much, much slimmer.
During lockdown, Joe Wicks got much of the nation moving. Now we need someone to teach us to cook. Not gourmet meals that win competitions. Just an omelette, a bowl of spaghetti, a baked potato, a stew. We need someone to teach us to sit at a table, with a knife and fork. We need it because eating a meal with people you love is one of the greatest pleasures in life, but also because it might just save it.
Christina Patterson is the author of ‘The Art of Not Falling Apart’ and host of the podcast Work Interrupted
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