NEW PM MUST PRIORITISE WAR ON OBESITY

NOW that Boris Johnson is stepping down, I fear that will mean the end of our war on obesity.

Boris had personal reasons for wanting to tackle this problem — he said he ended up in intensive care with Covid due to being ‘ way overweight’. But will his successor be as keen?

Liz Truss has said that people ‘don’t want the Government telling them what to eat’ and that she will scrap Boris’s proposed ban on ‘buy one, get one free’ deals on products such as chocolate, crisps or cakes.

Although she, and Rishi Sunak, say they are committed to easing the NHS crisis, how they propose tackling our everrising rates of obesity (which is one of the biggest drivers of that crisis) remains to be seen.

The only bit of good news is that one important part of Boris’s anti-obesity strategy is still in place (though probably hanging by a thread). This is a proposal to curb junk food adverts aimed at children.

We know curbs work: a study by Sheffield University suggests restrictions on junk food ads on the Transport for London network in 2019 led to 95,000 fewer cases of obesity, prevented or delayed 2,857 cases of diabetes, and is expected to save the NHS £218 million.

Let’s hope our next PM will be brave enough to take on the junk food giants.