Obesity

Caroline Flint Fat enough?

Recent panic about obesity left me with that dulling of the senses you get when a newspaper is short of things to publish and English pseudo scientists are keen to get a grant. You’re reluctant to disbelieve it but at the same time reluctant to believe it.

Of course they recommend a fat tax on junk food. I suppose however this would be a little unfair if I went jogging every day in order to enjoy a Big Mac – I would be paying the tax without being overweight. But there are problems in imposing a tax directly on fat people, hauling them by crane to be publicly weighed and denounced, problems which even this nannying government would resist.

But it is the veracity of the findings I want to take issue with. Reading them I had a sense of déjà vu and I am grateful to the Velvet Glove Iron Fist blog for helping out with some facts.

According to the BBC 40% of British men – up from less than a quarter – could be obese by 2030.

The last obesity panic was in 2006. The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in accordance with his unwavering policy of having to be seen to be doing something (as opposed to actually doing it) had appointed a Fat Minister. At least she didn’t look very fat, so may not have known anything about the subject.

Now in 2006 the experts reckoned that by 2010 – only four years away – the obesity rate for men in Britain would rise from 23.1% to 33%.

So how did it turn out? The obesity rate didn’t in fact rise but fell to 22%.

Now are these the same experts with today’s prediction?