Let’s get physical The PM’s fight against flab
Boris Johnson unveiled plans to impose sweeping curbs on the sale of unhealthy foods this week, and appealed to voters to “do their bit” to tackle Britain’s obesity levels. The proposals include a ban on both in-store promotions and ads on TV before 9pm for junk food. No. 10 also wants to force larger restaurant and café chains to include calorie counts on menus. Food manufacturers condemned the proposals, saying they would cost the industry hundreds of millions a year, and make little difference to obesity levels.
The crackdown – part of a 12-week “Better
Health” campaign – is aimed at mitigating the effects of a second wave of Covid-19 this winter. The PM insisted he didn’t believe in “nannying”, but warned that obesity leaves people more at risk from the virus. He admitted to being “way overweight” when he caught the virus – but said he has since lost more than a stone by exercising and changing his diet.
Boris Johnson has long taken up arms against the “Nanny State”, said The Daily Telegraph – but that was before his own “near-death brush” with Covid landed him in intensive care, an experience which he partly attributes to his 17-and-a-half stone weight at the time. Now, he’s on a “crusade” to get Britain to “shed the flab”. He has picked a good time to make the case, said the FT. Obesity doubles the chance of Covid patients ending up in hospital and the pandemic has shown “how overburdened the NHS has become” – not least thanks to the volume of obesity-related diseases like type-2 diabetes. Cracking down now is a sensible move.
Action on this issue is long overdue, said The Guardian. Britain is the second fattest country in Europe (after Malta), with almost two-thirds of adults either overweight or obese. But if he’s serious about solving the problem, Johnson must tackle the root causes head-on: he should extend the “sugar tax” on fizzy drinks; subsidise healthy foods to help poorer families eat better; and give councils more power to “control the spread of fast food outlets”.