Government tackling obesity missing a key element

[HeeeeyDuggee]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53546151

Government have announced measures to tackle obesity

AIBU to think that although it’s all well and good banning buy 1 get 1 free and advertising before 21:00 what they really need to do is make fresh fruit and vegetables and good quality meat cheaper for people to buy.

It may be a regional thing but buying enough veg for the week here costs a fortune and it goes off within days. Where as you can buy a massive packet nuggets and chips for much less.

Pre covid it was bad enough for lots of families but given the ramifications on jobs and the economy I think lots more families will struggle to afford decent healthy food.

Ps not a fat persons bashing thread I myself am over weight

I guess the trouble is loads of people simply prefer the taste of junk food to home cooked healthy food - we've had millions of years of our dopamine programming us to seek out fat, salt and sugar after all! My brother is like this - if his wife didn't do all the cooking he'd 100% live on chocolate bars and kettle chips. How you get round that is extremely tricky! I suppose by really intensively educating kids about how bad junk food is for you and teaching them to cook from scratch, that way their kids are less likely to be exposed to the junk in the first place. It's really complex. I do also think the links between obesity and cancer could be more well publicised though. Although cancer research got in trouble the last time they tried that. Learning that drinking even small amounts raises your risk of certain cancers was a strong factor for me in quitting drinking.

@MadameMeursault

They should tax the junk food and use the extra money to subsidise fruit and veg. It’s not rocket science.

So who decides what is "junk" food?

We already have stupid anomalies with VAT where a jaffa cake is standard rated but a chocolate biscuit is zero rated. Where a bottle of water is standard rated - how much more healthy and basic can you get, so why the hell is it standard rated?

Would you be happy to pay VAT (i,e, 20% more) on ready meals because they're regarded as "junk" due to being processed or because they have relatively high levels of sugar, or salt, or preservative, or additive, or whatever other criteria is used to class them as "junk".

I have been involved in the past with food projects. There is truth about cheap food and poverty and obesity but it’s far more complex than just that issue.

Emotional eating
Alcohol
Perceptions of what is overweight
Snacking between meals
Perception of portion size
Eating out

Apart from emotional eating the shift of the other things on the list I wrote is huge and have seen it change over the last thirty years,

How can anyone suggest that fruit & veg is expensive in the UK?

People eat shit because they like eating it.

Clearly Johnson does too looking at his fat gut.

And let's face it - it was not really very helpful giving people 'panic' messages to stay in their houses for 3 months was it?

This obesity announcement is just a Government deflection policy designed to move the dialogue on from Covid-19. I am sure Dominic Cummings suggested it to Johnson at a recent briefing.

We need to overhaul PE in school. It's fine if you like team sports or dance. But if you need strength and basic fitness its rubbish. A reckon theres a fair number of kids doing Joe wicks who are going to end end up fitter after lockdown.

I'm not sure 2for1s etc is going to much. We need to remove the stigma attached to frozen. Frozen veg is cheap and does the job. Lots of fruit isnt great due to the sugar content.

If they really want people to lose weight you need to re-establish rationing.

They should tax the junk food and use the extra money to subsidise fruit and veg. It’s not rocket science

This is probably the direction to take. Plus maybe subsidising Hello Fresh type deliveries to help people who struggle with planning and starting up a storecupboard of spices etc (although you can get a good range of basic spices for £5-10 if you buy larger packs of Asian brands or supermarket own, not branded jars).

Then, providing that the meal packs are quick and easy to prepare, without the need for specialist equipment, the only problem you'd have left to solve is the fact that many people simply don't like and won't eat meals made with vegetables and pulses and only like to eat beige and chips, burgers or pizza.

Maybe ration sugar too - everyone gets an allowance for sweets, chocolates, biscuits, cake, fizzy drinks and once it's gone you can't have any more. Although that would obviously never work as there would just be a black market for these items.

@Lalaok

What I notice whenever I go on holiday is that their supermarkets are completely different to ours. They have more raw ingredients and fresh fruit and vegetables. Whereas we have aisle after aisle of processed junk.

Because that's what people buy here. Supermarkets don't waste space on items people don't want

@contrmary

YANBU. Make healthy food cheaper and more convenient than unhealthy food, but still taste as good, and people will switch.

Personally I think the best way to get people to lose weight is to pay them to. Say £100 per lb lost, for every lb you lose down to a healthy level, so long as you keep it off for a year. It would be much more cost effective in the long run.

Why should a overweight person be paid to lose weight How about the cost to the health systems of a country because people are lazy or careless Nah they shouldn't be paid. Get real. Go walk and eat veggies and learn to cook People blame but never fix themselves Why!

I think fruit and veg is already reasonably priced. I don’t really understand people saying processed and frozen foods are cheaper, even when they are on offer they really are not cheaper. Aldi often do offers on fruit and veg, you can often get a bag of apples for 60p. A lot more people are growing their own veg this year too due to civid/lockdown. I’m skint but I manage to cook healthy meals most nights and mostly from scratch, of course we have the occasional fish finger or chicken nuggets but usually if we have been too busy to cook from scratch. I do think it’s more about people lacking time and inspiration.

I managed to lose over a stone by cutting down the quantity I was eating, increasing the proportion of veg in my meals (makes the meat stretch further) and started exercising in the form of walking every day - which costs nothing, assuming you already have suitable shoes.

I still eat chocolate, peanuts, crisps, biscuits, cake, wine ... just not every day, and I use my (rusty!) willpower to limit the quantity.

I bulk-cook (bolognese sauce, chilli, curries), so it hardly matters whether the veg are fresh or tinned.

I agree it's harder to influence (control?) what other people in the family eat,

@TooGood2BeTrue

It's always baffled me that it's cheaper to buy a Mars bar than a banana or an apple! I think there should be a campaign to promote eating less meat; once or twice a week is plenty if you otherwise eat a balanced diet that includes lots of pulses, eggs and nuts. I would also introduce daily PE lessons and put double yellow lines on the roads around schools with exemptions only for residents and blue badge holders.

It's not though. 6 apples are £1.30 in my local Asda. One mars bar is 90p in my local shop.

I don’t even find slow cook cuts cheap! I can remember when oxtail was cheap, then it shot up. I’ve no idea what it is now as i haven’t bought it for years but it’s bloody lush!

I think a lot of overweight people opt for easy options such as take aways and beige oven food because they don’t have the skills needed to cook quick, easy, wholesome foods. There was a push to offer cooking lessons in the past. I don’t know if it still happens but these skills are definitely missing nowadays, my family included!

My grandmother was a school cook, my mother ate meals cooked from scratch daily. When she raised us she did cook but latterly relied on ready meals and maybe one or two recipes. When I asked her why she didn’t pass on any cooking skills to be she couldn’t really answer. I cook a lot more but do also use oven foods. I haven’t got my children involved in cooking as they’re still very young but I’m mindful I should teach them
the basics at least.

I’m interested to see what Boris does on a personal level. He’s really in the spotlight to sort himself out.

*YANBU. Make healthy food cheaper and more convenient than unhealthy food, but still taste as good, and people will switch.

Personally I think the best way to get people to lose weight is to pay them to. Say £100 per lb lost, for every lb you lose down to a healthy level, so long as you keep it off for a year. It would be much more cost effective in the long run*

I'd put on weight just to lose it if they paid £100 per lb!

A few weeks ago we bought fruit (raspberries, strawberries and apples) veg from a local farm shop. I was amazed by how much longer it lasted compared to supermarket veg and wonder just how old supermarket veg is by the time it gets to the shop.

It was more expensive to buy, but I suspect that overall it might work out cheaper for us than buying in the supermarkets. Because there's just 2 of us, we don't use a whole cabbage or head of broccoli in a day, or even two, as we don't like eating the same thing 2 days running.

However, I should probably fess up to the fact that the only reason we were in the farm shop in the first place was because they sell fabulous pies ...

Although cancer research got in trouble the last time they tried that.

Cancer Research publicity wasn't balanced though and some of the things they were saying were wrong, or at best economical with the truth. They got the tone completely wrong and it turned into "victim blaming". The huge number of people with cancers that aren't lifestyle related were rightly seriously annoyed and many stopped their support/donations, and rightly so.

At the end of the day, statistics show only 30-50% of cancers are preventable - that shows that at least half can't be avoided, even with healthy lifestyles.

By all means, publicise the health risks of unhealthy lifestyles, but don't go too far and "victim blame" all those who get cancer through no fault of their own.

After all, those young children who get, say, leukaemia didn't smoke, drink, etc did they?

Yes! This. How much would a free £20 box per low income household help with a relatively small start up cost?

I actually really like this idea. Like the Scottish baby box, but for food. It could have olive oil, balsamic vinegar, good quality salt, black pepper, and then jars of the most commonly used herbs and spices. Just to get people started, then they could replace things as they ran out and it would be much more manageable than a huge initial outlay.

@Hangingover - even being near a gym when you have children (and you’re female) it is far more difficult to access exercise.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

Yes , very true

@TooGood2BeTrue

It's always baffled me that it's cheaper to buy a Mars bar than a banana or an apple! I think there should be a campaign to promote eating less meat; once or twice a week is plenty if you otherwise eat a balanced diet that includes lots of pulses, eggs and nuts. I would also introduce daily PE lessons and put double yellow lines on the roads around schools with exemptions only for residents and blue badge holders.

It isn’t more expensive to buy a Mars bar than an apple.

Just go to shops/supermarkets which have a good range of "loose" fruit and veg and just buy what you need

Slight derail but I was amazed to discover you can buy loose celery stalks and herd stalks here in Aus. Bloody brilliant, cut down on wastage so much!

it's the crap "food" multipacks that need to be banned. The ones where you can get 4 kitkats for a pound but they cost 79p sold singly. Same with crisps - 60p per packet or 10 packet multipack for £2

I agree with this.

^There is truth about cheap food and poverty and obesity but it’s far more complex than just that issue.

Emotional eating
Alcohol
Perceptions of what is overweight
Snacking between meals
Perception of portion size
Eating out^

Exactly. Just about everything on that list is costly. Snacks, alcohol, large portions, eating out, all either expensive extras or more expensive compared with basic fresh home cooked food in sensible portions, meaning the 'people don't eat healthily because they can't afford to' argument just doesn't stack up.

Fruit and veg is really cheap in most supermarkets, as are pulses so cost isnt the issue. It's about convenience. As a working parent getting home at 6 with fractious and hungry children I'm not going to faff making spinach and ricotta pancakes( Sunday's dinner) because Im knackered. So it will be oven chips, or pasta with a jar sauce, etc. You can cook from scratch very cheaply..if you have time.

Some joined up Government thinking might help. About half the leisure centres in the UK are currently closed, although they are allowed to open, as they've been outsourced from skint local authorities and the groups that now run them can't afford to re-open them on on the limited numbers that they're currently allowed to have in their buildings and pools. Although exercise can't make you thin, it can play an important part in helping you to change your lifestyle. Given that local medical centres are overstretched and will be more so when they have to provide flu jabs to half the population, why can't the government put some funding into leisure centres specifically so they can play a role in making us all healthier??

@justanotherneighinparadise, I agree with you!

We buy brisket of beef now and again, slow roast it, have a roast, have it cold with salad the next and use the rest for a pie. It used to be about £4. A few weeks ago, I was in Sainsburys and the brisket on the butchery counter was £9 for quite a small one.

It's more than doubled in 3 or 4 years.