What should the government do to reduce obesity at the societal level?

[waistchallenge]

We're the fattest country in Europe and the upshot is what you see here: people posting threads in desperation about their weight loss struggles. I think we can probably all agree it would be easier to never have gotten overweight in the first place and to never have had to go through these weight loss efforts and experiences.

Apart from the sugar tax, I cannot see that the government has done much, if anything, to reduce obesity in this country; it's higher than ever.

I'm asking here because we all have experience of this to be on here, what-if anything- should the government do to reduce obesity in this country? What would have helped you? Or is it all just ultimately a question of personal responsibility?

I think one of the things this thread has highlighted is that children are now spending longer in school/childcare settings rather than playing out. So it would be worth concentrating on what they are eating there and how to make those environments more active. When my ds went to after school club he played on a PlayStation till I picked him up.

Sort problems earlier. I'm not sure what overweight adults get, I think it's money off slimming world or the gym. We should do this for children with money off swimming or softplay for those families whose dc are overweight in reception. Council run affordable gym/swimming/softplay that everyone can access with regular (at least twice a week) separate sessions for teenagers and SEN children/adults. These also need to be accessible to everyone either walking or using affordable public transport. More playgrounds, especially for older children and more footpaths to access them.

I live on a main road with no footpath so the only place I can go on foot is the pavement outside our row of 8 terraced houses. anything else I have to cross the busy road which takes 15-20 minutes. Nearest playground is 1 mile away including crossing an A road and a B road. Soft play near here is nearly £10 per child and only aged up to 12. You can only stay for 2 hours as well. There used to be a softplay at the council run pool/gym that was loads cheaper but it's been shut down. Trampoline park is for teens and adults as well as kids but it's £12 for an hour so even more expensive. My dc love soft play but can't cope if it's busy. SEN sessions with reduced numbers are once a month but they have become really popular so are now not accessible to my dc because they are too busy and loud.

Clubs at my dc primary school stopped because of covid and never started up again so there is now no football club or team, no netball, no athletics. There used to be sports clubs 3 days a week after school.

Actually treat mental health problems rather than give people pills. I have PND and I get 150mg of sertraline and a 5 minute phone call from the pharmacist once a year. The meds help but I've had no real improvement. My youngest is 9 years old which is a very long time to have PND.

While agreeing with the generally, there is a growing understanding that not all calories are equal. The body is not a burning calorimeter.
Say 100cal of doughnut - calories absorbed is almost 100% due to very processed nature and sugar easy to absorb.
100 calories of meat - current estimate is that 30 calories of that is used in digestion as protein so hard to digest so 70 calories net
100 calories cooked sweetcorn kernels compared to 100 calories of raw sweetcorn kernels - net calories under 100 as we can't digest cellulose and fewer calories from raw ones as harder to digest than cooked ones so more passed through body.

I think this is why whole food less obesogenic

School meals are pretty dire. Ds regularly has pizza AND pasta and baked beans followed by cake or a cookie. He gets fsm but I'm tempted to put him on packed lunches. Why pizza and pasta together? He says that's what it comes with. He's a skinny little thing on the 14th percentile so I'm not worried about his weight but nutritionally it's not great. He's often very hungry after school but walks there and back which is 2.5-3 miles a day depending on which way we walk.

Looking around the playground at pick up the fat children have at least one fat parent. One poor girl is in dresses way too small for her and the fabric is straining. She's only 6 and it's so sad to see. Other children struggle to walk let alone run because they are so heavy. PE twice a week isn't going to make much difference and the share bags of Haribo they get given at home time won't either.

I think one of the things this thread has highlighted is that children are now spending longer in school/childcare settings rather than playing out.

While I totally agree more activity is good, my recollections of childhood featured more coming home to watch kids tv than playing out - especially in winter.

Most kids will have the majority of their meals at home, I think shit school meals don’t help but if your kid isn’t in wraparound then they eat 16 out of 21 meals a week at home only 5 out of 21 at school

My school meals were ok, I used to get a plate of chips even though a very nice lasagne was on offer (my “friends” took the piss out of anyone wanting to eat proper food so I used to avoid it, I think a plate of chips just shouldn’t be an option). Most kid have a range of options and will then pick the most nutritionally empty one. Just remove the option, no tuck shops, no dessert etc.

Just remembering the Jamies school dinners thing where some parents were really resistant to changing what they were doing. Not sure what the government can do about that kind of thing. Sometimes people eat the way they want to because they like it and don’t actually want to change even with support etc.

This has reminded me of a conversation nearly 20 years ago with a friend whose ds had just started school and she asked him what he had for lunch and he replied, ‘Chips and ice cream.’ She assumed he was making it up as it didn’t occur to her that a 5 year old would be given full choice of what to eat and allowed to choose only junk food for what was meant to be (historically school dinners were designed as) a main meal.
It was only when Jamie’s School Dinners came on tv she realised that yes it was really true.
It’s a sign of how bad things have got that it wouldn’t occur to you a child was lying about that now.

In Japan, employers measure weight circumference of their employees every single year! Those who are over the threshold are referred to a dietician after 3 months to help them lose weight as it’s seen as unacceptable and the start of the road to diabetes. This wasn’t always the case: after WW2 when fast food became a thing, it exploded in Japan with the associated impact to weight. The government stepped in and now they’re among the slimmest nation in the world.

In the UK, we have normalised being overweight. We all know people who have lost weight so that they’re in the normal category for the first time in their lives and then the “are you well?” comments start.

I travel to certain parts of the UK and notice that waistlines are not equal everywhere.

We eat the most UPF in Europe, our children get awful meals at school, we don’t allow the kids to play unsupervised, generations of people don’t cook, we don’t like the government or doctors tell us how to live.. In countries like France with more dual working parents, they manage to cook and rear children who aren’t overweight.

If we are serious about weight, we need to intervene more. It won’t go down well though.

What you do about that is, provide healthy school meals for free and ban junk food from the school grounds. So what if parents complain? You can’t control what the kids eat outside school and you can’t force them to eat what’s on their plate but you can make sure that for those 6 hours a day when they are in school they pause their endless consumption of junk.

Would be happy to see it personally, as I said I don’t think it should be an option to eat shite at school. My DD would definitely be eating chips and ice cream if she could.

Ideally there would be something like 2 cooked meat options and 2 cooked veg options and not a chip in sight. Option for a lunch box for kids who have special requirements.

A few years ago, schools tried that and what happened was that parents were passing junk food through over the school fences and older pupils were going out to buy junk food to bring in and sell to the other kids.

Trying to control something simply doens't work. Just look at drugs, underage alcohol, underage smoking. If kids (and adults for that matter) want something, they'll find ways of getting it.

The real answer is education of BOTH children and their parents!!!

We’re very used to the idea there have to be options, aren’t we? I am sure when I was at school there was no choice! Of course you would have to have a veggie option available every day and any religious or other dietary requirements but I wonder if countries like France are so wedded to there having to be choice?

The passing junk food through the fence was a bunch of idiot parents playing up for the cameras and the kids going out to buy junk food was something that will happen in secondary but not primary where kids can’t leave school grounds at lunchtime. None of this is reason to provide junk food for school dinners.

This is excellent and what I was talking about - people need to take personal responsibility for themselves and be pulled up or charged if they are a burden to society. Good on the Japs!

Your point about how if people want something they will find a way of getting it- yes this is true, but I think the problem is that in this country at the moment the thing that you have to try a lot harder to get is healthy food and the line of least resistance is junk food.
If it was the other way round as it is in many other countries we would not be looking at 59% of our food intake being UPF. Nudges make a difference.

I also agree with you 100% about the importance of education but surely a big part of educating kids and their parents about food comes in what the schools actually give their children for school dinners? It’s not remotely reasonable to be lecturing parents about how they should feed their kids a healthy diet while the school itself is feeding the kids on chips and ice cream for lunch.

TLDR: increase activity via financial subsidies and more availability

Interesting that most of the focus on this thread is on food, less on movement.

I didn't get fat until I stopped doing regular sports / activity (illness, work and family got in the way).

I think we need to normalise being outside and active, multiple sports as children leading to an active adulthood, it being totally normal to take part in a sporting event every weekend and to exercise for fun during the week. Swimming, running, racquet sports as well as team sports, there is something for everyone.

Heavy financial subsidies would help, many people are put off by the cost of, say, swimming lessons for children. I am finally back exercising now I am retired but spending quite a chunk of my budget on it which again wouldn't be possible or a top priority for many.
Also working on increased availability so more coaches & more facilities. Pilates and aqua at my local council gym are always over subscribed. My DS wanted to try water polo as a child but none of our local pools offered it.

I lost half a stone in 3 weeks in Japan, partly because we walked miles, but mostly because portion sizes are sensible, and while there are loads of UPF and fast food options available, nobody eats in the street or on public transport.

The vast majority of restaurants, and food is available very cheaply, cook their food on site.

People just eat too much! (There are people for whom it's an issue, and food poverty is a real thing, but mostly people eat too much.)

I'm overweight because I stress eat and look for a quick "fix" of sugar or salt. Or eat when bored.

I put on weight when I went back to work because I was getting less exercise due to less time but didn't cut down food to match reduced activities. DH put on weight when our dog died because he wasn't forced to make time for a walk 3 times a day and couldn't make himself do it for himself rather than someone else.

Activity levels also help with mood/motivation to care about diet.

As I said earlier, @waistchallenge - I do know that I am responsible for my weight issues, and that the solution lies in my own hands.

However, on a national level, I honestly think that, if leaving it up to individual's own efforts worked, we wouldn't have an obesity crisis now. And, as it clearly isn't working, we need a national strategy, and that probably does mean input from the Government, to ensure good food in schools, to crack down on special offers on UPFs, to encourage activity in children and adults, and to make sure everyone has the necessary skills to plan and cook a healthy diet.

Nobody is blaming poor people they are recognising that poverty is a factor/cause. Two different things.

@JudyBlumesBlubber

I travel to certain parts of the UK and notice that waistlines are not equal everywhere.

This is so true, even within a relatively small distance. I started worked in the neighbouring county and one of the first things I noticed was the majority of the office were either obese or very obese. Almost all overweight. Then an email went round re “health clinics” and health checks and it was mentioned that it’s an area that has a larger proportion of overweight people.

I live in Sweden (obesity on the rise but much lower rates than the UK) and I find it quite shocking that kids are served puddings and junk food at school or allowed to take them in packed lunches. My kids are not allowed to take sweets or junk food to school, they can have fruit and vegetables. School meals are provided for everyone and while the food is not ideal (typical public procurement crap) it’s never fast food, just traditional dishes like ärtsoppa (pea soup) or meatballs. We also don’t have sweets at home and only have sweet treats on Saturday.

I don’t think any soft state interventions would solve the problem. There’s been a huge cultural shift over the last 100 or so years and the values such as moderation, self-control, discipline and treating our own bodies with respect are not cool anymore.
I think it’s ultimately down to individual choices and if people don’t want to take responsibility for their actions, then the Japan-style interventions should be the way to go.

I think there are lots of fantastic resources already available to people in the UK and it’s quite sad that people are not interested in using them. Every time I pick up running after a longer break I use NHS Couch to 5K, I find lots of recipes on BBC Good Food and The Great British Chefs pages, I used and implemented lots of tips I found on a UK diabetes charity to overhaul my diet. The resources are already there, for free.

I don’t agree that healthy eating is expensive. It might be more expensive than a diet based on beige carbs only, but I run a very detailed food budget and we save a lot of money by not buying crisps, candy, sweets, cakes, ready-made meals and all that crap. We also eat seasonal vegetables - in winter that’s cabbage, kale, root vegetables, onions, leek. They are cheap, at least in Sweden a whole cabbage that can be used for several dinners for a family of four is cheaper than a bag of crisps! I work full time as well but we batch cook and freeze, including making lunches for work.

I agree, I bought a cabbage for 80p and have so far had it for Sunday lunch for 4 plus 2 X meals for 2 this week and a portion for 2 is still left. But so many people are buying green beans from Senegal at £3 a pack which are actually tough anyway, they only taste great (IMO) when English in the summer.

You don't know many farmers, do you?