Women are getting fat ‘ by eating two extra biscuits a day’

WOMEN are overweight because they are eating two biscuits too many every day, a top medical expert has warned.

Professor Dame Sally Davies urged people to be ‘honest’ instead of pretending others are not overweight and advised that women need to cut their daily intake of food.

The comments by England’s chief medical officer follow forecasts showing obesity will overtake smoking as the leading cause of cancer in women by 2043. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’ s Desert Island Discs about removing stigma when discussing obesity, she said: ‘We are going to have to do quite a lot of work with marketing people to find the best way, but I do think we have to be honest about it and not pretend people are not overweight or obese.

‘You know, what makes this happen is, on average, women eat one or two biscuits too much each day, so we need people to think about [eating] a little less every day so they are stable and a little less than that every day to steadily drop it [their weight].’

There are approximately 184 calories in two McVitie’s chocolate hobnobs, with a similar amount of calories and high fat levels in shortbread.

Nicknamed ‘ nanny in chief’, Dame Sally, 69, has previously told women to think about their risk of breast cancer every time they reach for a glass of wine.

Dame Sally, who will soon leave the role after nine years to become Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, also showed her support for controversial adverts from Cancer Research UK. The billboards, featuring cigarette packages with the slogan: ‘Obesity is a cause of cancer too’, have been given as examples of ‘fat- shaming’. She told presenter Lauren Laverne yesterday that obesity ‘causes heart disease, diabetes, so much suffering for the families. We have to look at how we can help people not get obese’.

Meanwhile, discussing her nickname, Dame Sally said: ‘It’s suggesting that I am wagging my finger when in fact I am giving advice and people do not have to take it.

‘The second thing is I think it is very sexist, the first woman CMO gets accused that she is nanny in chief. Well, what are they going to say to [a] man? I bet they don’t say that.’ As well as her Cambridge role, she is set to become the UK’s first superbugs tsar when she leaves her post later this year. She has called for deaths from drug- resistant diseases to be recorded on death certificates.

She also said she is ‘immensely worried’ that it is cheaper for people to eat unhealthy foods.

‘The poorer you are the higher the density of fast food outlets which don’t have healthy food,’ she said. ‘We have to make sure that poor people can afford a healthy grocery basket – and that means low in fat, low in calories, low in salt – and that is not easy at the moment.’