To think peoples lives are crap enough without needing the government to interfere with Meal Deals

[Jeansmeansheinz]

FFS just let people have the pleasure of a Meal Deal. I really don't need the Government telling me what I can and can't eat.

Does anyone remember a few years back when rate my meal deal was really popular?

This is such a trite way of trying to tackle obesity 🤦🏼‍♀️ how stupid.

There are much unhealthier options than meal deals which already includes options such as pasta salad, fruit / veg sticks, lower fat crisps, sugar free drinks / water, if you want to make a healthier choice, otherwise you'll just pop along to the bakers and get a sausage roll and a cream cake.

Again the myth that only the UK/West has a problem with obesity and bad food.

The highest obesity rates in the world are all in the Pacific Islands or the Middle East. The UK barely cracks the top 30.

It's not only for the middle classes, but in the UK, obesity is correlated with poverty. This isn't a coincidence. There are wider societal factors going on here and they're impacting poorer people more. Which means if we don't address those, and we can't do that if we don't acknowledge them, we aren't tackling the root of the issue.

Fruit juice is unhealthy if consumed as a replacement for water...the amount of sugar in fruit juice is very high (i.e. calories) due to the process of juicing which removes the fiber, so you consume more sugar but feel less full, which leads to consuming more. Same with smoothies, if you ate that number of fruit/vegies raw you would feel full very quickly.

Insatiable hunger makes people obsessed with eating, so a product that (inadvertently) makes people feel hungry and therefore increases their consumption is good for business.

UPF has been engineered to increase our consumption of it and this is the damage that the additives have by making us want more of the food. So even though, everything is fine in moderation, but our brains cannot tell what is moderate anymore.

This disproportionately affects people in low-income houses who have less choice over where they can purchase food, their personal time and energy as they are often doing manual labour or roles that are not flexible, and their ability to skill up in food prep and pass on those skills to their children.

Personally, I would like to see more workplaces opting to provide a nutritious meal as part of their contracts, especially for those roles that mean people become time poor i.e. shift work etc.

I didn't say only the UK has an obesity problem. I said poor people across the world eat better, generally. I stick by that.

The Middle East has adopted the UPF diet- KFC, Coke and the rest- and they are hardly poor.

Just to point out that poorer countries that have healthier scratch meals tend to have females out of the workforce and providing elderly, childcare and all the domestic work. Often multigenerational households and some problematic issues as a result for women.
Having one parent at home is out of reach for a lot of people in the UK. As are multigenerational households or even living locally to grandparents and siblings.
Fact is, life is a lot slower in some of the countries we look down on and our model of both parents working every hour God sends isn't working out for us too well.

This aside, blatantly the previous meal dealers are off to McDonald's instead. Obvs.

Exactly, sausage rolls are cheap and stuff like that- I just don't believe people will make healthier choices if they're already choosing not to have the more reasonable meal deal options. My local bakery does 2 king size sausage rolls for £2 and all sorts of random offers where you can add a cake for hardly anything.

The issue is that all the posters saying moderation aren't really acknowledging that 60 percent of the population is overweight. So moderation isn't happening.

30 years ago we weren't like this. Now the majority of us are fat. And that's because we are, amongst other things, encouraged to overconsume, not cook, eat larger portions and crap sandwiches.

Thirty years ago a lot of families could afford to have one parent at home.
I don't think that's a coincidence.

Sadly OP the obesity crisis needs this intervention and a hell of a lot more. I welcome it and I hope they go much, much further.

Speaking from my own personal experience here. I was thin up to 40, have yo yo'd just above a healthy bmi since then but looked and felt good at that weight. I recently developed problem due to my body not processing fat. Honestly? I'd never paid attention to the fat content of things. I rarely eat fast food, ready meals, etc., so i thought i was fine.

We can't all be equally knowledgeable about all things. I'm smart and i didn't realise i wasn't eating in an ok way. 95% of my food is home cooked, love vegetables, beans/legumes, fruit, meat is mostly chicken and fish, but i was also consuming a lot of fat via butter, peanut butter, eggs, cheese, plain greek yogurt, etc., and this has led me to having to use NHS resources, i need a surgery, have had a blue light ambulance, emergency care from a specialist unit, etc.

I've absolutely now learned what i didn't know before, but it's too late, i now have to have a surgery. This could have been avoided through better education. You wouldn't know to look at me that my body was struggling to process fat. I'm all for government implementing best health initiatives based on research by professionals in their specialist fields of knowledge. It makes us a smarter, healthier, fitter nation. That's something to be proud of.

More time for scratch cooking really

The UK has a lot more to worry about that just obesity.

The number of UK children in food poverty has nearly doubled in the last year to almost 4 million.

One in five (22%) of households in the UK have reported skipping meals, going hungry or not eating for a whole day in January.

I'd be like a rabbit fox if they did this, but in my own interest they should definitely criminalise Pringles. Any of those reformed, rehydrated, foamy, highly processed crisps that have me by the short and curlies after eating the first one.

I bet half my weight issues can be pinned on those.

This.

Frankly I'm surprised only 60% are overweight. It's getting rare to see healthy people these days.

If they want to tackle obesity they should start with banning deliveroo and the like. Now you don’t even have to leave your house to have a meal full of junk.

@Meltingpots - Pringles are a really good example of UPF. People eat them in a compulsive way. It's not actually to do with hunger.

I understand your perspective on the pringles, mine used to be biscuits with a cuppa tea till I stopped buying them,

Very true, for me it was habit with them

Completely reasonable.

We all need to be saying this loudly and clearly about all new forms of Givt interference.

That's part of parenting...

And the ingredients will be wayyyy cheaper than the same things in the uk. The ‘wanky’ including the govt KNOW those ingredients are healthier, they’re not home grown, so they make the cost extortionate.

If only one could find those cute artisan stalls along the road in India,eh