Pros outweigh cons on obesity intervention
employees to cycle to work and believes it is a good moment to ‘get Britain on its bike’.
The PM’s suggestion that he wants a more interventionist approach comes despite his longstanding criticism of the ‘nanny state’.
A sugar tax came into effect in April 2018 and added 18-24p to a litre of soft drink, depending on its sugar content. Some ministers are pushing for the levy to be extended.
Earlier this week it was reported that when Mr Johnson was asked how to avoid coronavirus, he replied: ‘Don’t be a fatty in your fifties.’
One of his longstanding advisers said that the Prime Minister’s own battle with his waistline gives him ‘permission to speak’ to voters about the need to lose weight.
During his stint as foreign secretary between 2016 and 2018 he was eating heavily while flying on official business. The Prime Minister has also written about his ‘delicious late-night binges of chorizo and cheese’.
He is said to have lost a stone since coming out of hospital a month ago.
Labour hailed what it described as Mr Johnson’s ‘welcome conversion’ to interventionism. Jon Ashworth, the party’s health spokesman,
‘Don’t be a fatty in your fifties’
said: ‘We’ve repeatedly warned of the longterm health risks of obesity. If the Prime Minister now supports extending the sugar tax and banning junk food advertising before the watershed, then that’s a welcome conversion. Decisive action is urgently needed.’
n A record number of young adults whose fast food diets have seen them balloon in weight went under the knife last year for NHS-funded fat-fighting operations. The youngest was 14 but the biggest rise was among young adults aged 18 or 19. Surgeons operated on them 25 times last year compared with 13 in 2018.
Experts worry teenagers may be opting for quick-fix weight loss operations, known as bariatric surgery, rather than changing their diet and doing more exercise.
n Latest coronavirus video news, views and expert advice at mailplus.co.uk/coronavirus
on the whole, personal responsibility and self-control are better ways of curing society’s ills than a nosying nanny state.
Boris Johnson has always thought this. To the Prime Minister, government interference in private lives was anathema. But on obesity he’s dramatically changed his tune. To fight Britain’s battle with the bulge, he’s preparing to become strikingly more interventionist.
His brush with death from coronavirus has prompted this U-turn. Mr Johnson is convinced he ended up in intensive care because of his weight. After age, obesity is the second biggest risk factor. Almost one in three adults and, scandalously, a fifth of children leaving primary are obese. Is this why Covid has wreaked such havoc here?
obesity is nothing short of a ticking timebomb under the nation’s health. It costs the nhs billions in treating diabetes, strokes and heart disease. The distinctly unconservative ‘sugar tax’ on fizzy drinks has shown some success, with manufacturers re-jigging recipes to keep prices down. But Boris the libertarian recoils at extending it. Instead, he prefers to make it simpler for people to exercise.
Doctors could also be incentivised to have awkward conversations with people about slimming down. It goes against this paper’s every fibre. But so damaging has obesity become that the case for more state intervention is almost overwhelming.