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The measures unveiled by the government are welcome. But a far more comprehensive approach, recognising the role of inequality, is required
In a typically EU-baiting Telegraph column in 2007, Boris Johnson regaled his readers with a pen portrait of the kind of politician who would slap a health warning on food and alcoholic drinks. This was the kind of bossy move, he suggested, that would appeal to “some Swedish divorcee health commissioner, sitting in her velour slacks in her taupe-coloured office in the Breydel building, Brussels”.
How wrong can you be? On Monday it was the blond, portly scourge of the nanny state himself who decreed that clear calorie counts must be shown on menus in restaurants and pubs, as part of his new anti-obesity plan for Britain. Leaving such ironies aside, the obesity strategy unveiled by the prime minister deserves a qualified welcome. The measures to be introduced are overdue in a country that has the biggest weight problem in Europe; almost two-thirds of adults in England are overweight or obese. As well as using calorie information to promote healthier choices, shops’ two-for-one offers on unhealthy foods are to be outlawed, and there will be a public health advertising campaign. Continue reading...