Forget fatty foods... it’s mobiles that should come with health warnings

KELLOGG’S Frosties? As I remember, they were Gr-r-reat! Coco Pops were so chocolatey they even turned the milk brown. Ricicles, as every eight-year-old knew, were the cheeky little brother of Rice Krispies. They not only snapped, crackled and popped but snuck extra sugar into the bargain. Yum scrum.

On the rare occasions when Mum used to buy the Kellogg’s Variety Pack – or ‘little packets’, as we called them – guess which ones were the first to disappear. Hint: it wasn’t the Corn Flakes.

One of the Quaker Oats Company’s biggest sellers was a cereal brazenly called Sugar Puffs. It was bits of wheat clarted in the stuff. In the late 1970s they introduced the Honey Monster whose catchphrase was ‘tell ‘em about the honey, mummy’.

The monster was craftily deployed to distract attention from all that sugar, which was bad, and refocus it on honey, which was good.

Nevertheless, they contained ten times the amount of sugar than honey. In 2014, the cereal was rebranded as Honey Monster Puffs and, to mark the occasion, the honey content was increased from 3 per cent to 3.6 per cent.

I realise this brief sojourn in Scottish family breakfasts’ yesteryears may paint the purveyors of sugary cereals as cynical profiteers exploiting the young and sweet toothed.

I know the parents who let us eat this stuff are, by today’s standards, unconscionable heathens in their approach to childcare.

But you see, back in those days, almost none of us were obese or even chubby. We were sports mad skinnymalinks – fleet of foot and rosy of cheek.

Don’t ask me how they did it, mums and dad of the 1970s, but they contrived to sponsor into adulthood a generation whose haleness was a credit to their parenting.

It was almost as if they, rather than Tony the Tiger or the Honey Monster, were the primary influences on their children’s diet – as if they were somehow monitoring their little ones’ intake and making decisions for the best.

Who knows how they pulled it off in those unenlightened times before government decided to do our parenting for us. Let us park that mystery for now as we consider the latest measures by the state to do parents’ job for them.

A Westminster Government clampdown will, from this coming October, outlaw the placement of foods high in fat, salt and sugar in key locations in stores where they may be easily spotted.

That includes aisle ends, checkouts and store entrances and applies to many cereals as well as sweets.

If shoppers want to locate those products supposed by a paternalist state to be responsible for the obesity crisis then stores must not make it easy for them.

Kellogg’s is challenging the regulations, arguing that the milk added to its cereals dilutes the sugar content. I am sure the company’s lawyers know what they are doing, but I would rather they argued the rules are just plain daft.

Meddle

Indeed, one of the most disappointing traits of this Tory Government is its readiness to meddle in responsibilities which fall on families and the individual. You expect it of condescending Left-wing outfits such as the one running Scotland which, from the cradle complete with baby box onwards, cannot keep its hands off our children.

But it sits badly for the party of family values, of small, unobtrusive government. In

England, for example, it is from this month a legal requirement for large chain restaurants and cafes to display calorie counts for meals and soft drinks. Here in Scotland, we are only in the consultation stage for introducing guilt trips about sticky toffee puddings on menus.

The idea, I suppose, is now that there is an obesity emergency and we have food health data coming out of our ears people may not have twigged that sticky toffee pudding is actually quite fattening.

On supermarket trips or restaurant visits I’d appreciate being credited with a little common sense. I’d like our governments to trust that, really, I know what I’m doing when I reach for a pack of chocolate biscuits.

This trust seems a vital part of the compact between state and citizen because, if it is not there, where does it end?

How long before marmalade and strawberry jam are on a high shelf, their manufacturers banned from telling us how scrumptious they are?

How long before we see health warnings on bacon, sausages and eggs, lest consumers attempt to turn them into a fried breakfast?

Absurdity

Perhaps we will encounter ‘beware, fatty foods’ signs on entering the snacks aisle or we will be invited to sign a disclaimer testifying to awareness of the dangers before we are permitted passage.

The overwhelming irony is that, even as we proceed further into absurdity, none of these measures is actually working. For a decade, statistics have consistently shown around two-thirds of Scots are either obese or overweight.

Perhaps, rather than scapegoating food manufacturers, our governments would benefit from blue sky thinking on the real reason 21st century kids have weight issues.

The answer is in the palm of our hands, staring us in the face, turning children into sedentary lumps. If anything, it is those mobile phones which should carry health warnings.