Thursday 7 September 2017

Spectator - obesity edition

I've got an article in tomorrow's Spectator about the government's doomed attempts to control people's waistlines. It's online now...

James Cracknell, the athlete turned anti-obesity campaigner, was the subject of sniggering and derision in April when he said that North Korea and Cuba had got a ‘handle on obesity’. With impressive understatement, he attributed this to both countries being ‘quite controlling on behavioural trends’. It was a bad point poorly made, but in a roundabout way he drew attention to the major obstacles faced by those who want to reduce obesity rates in the rest of the world: freedom and affluence.

Do read it all and also have a listen to the Spectator podcast in which I debate the issue with Graham MacGregor (Action on Sugar/Salt) and Francesco Rubino (KCL).

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