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 the whole education system needs a rethink and more emphasis on outdoor play and activities on the primary years to get children to enjoy exercise ( without it having an emphasis on it being ' exercise')

School dinners need to be hugely improved at a reasonable cost and cut down on the convience meals such as chicken nuggets and chips. Type food. I know this is a pipe dream!!

Tough talking by professions to parents who have seriously obese children that is not down to a medical condition followed by support and guidance eg a six week support plan showing differing food choices. I work with a few 11 /12 year old that are in clothing size 18 /20. No medical needs but won't eat fruit, veg and only want turkey dinosaur and air fried chips.
I don't like a lot of the body positive instagram type posts with obese women following around in their knicks and bras promoting curvy ( fat) is beautiful. It's not, it's unhealthy.

When people are doing two jobs to survive or have long commutes, they don’t have time to cook healthy meals or exercise. When people are stressed and overwhelmed, they don’t have the mental energy to meal plan, and eat to self-comfort. It’s no wonder that carers often gain weight.
Totally agree with this.
What a shit society we have become.

ban the sale of margarine and vegetable oil

That’s great that some people use their commute time to either exercise or prepare healthy food if wfh. However many do not and are simply moving a lot less and nearer the fridge for snacking without any judgement.

I think I said that there should be at most a 1.5 mile walk to the nearest pick up point which means expanding services

Yes to include rural areas

And since the road are not needed for much traffic they could all be single track and have decent footpaths for rural safety

Although if you would rather walk 6 miles each way it would be cheaper

I’ve lived in four countries, three of which have similar obesity levels and one that is lower

The lower one culturally viewed the issue differently, it wasn’t as socially tolerated.

How you get from where we are to lower obesity is incredibly difficult.

@midgetastic has some ideas but they won’t be popular

I have some very radical/controversial suggestions, for example:

• To put health information on large-sized clothes.
• And also to enforce British standard clothes sizing so people do not become very overweight without realising due to vanity sizing. This would also combat the opposite phenomenon you see with designer labels.
• Another possibility would be to limit the sale of chocolate and sweets as a proportion of a retail store's overall square meterage.
• To put health warnings on chocolate, sweets and crisps as there are for alcohol.

WFH made me gain loads of weight. Stuck in my house rather than walking to the office, a very available kitchen full of food rather than being limited to the food I take in or going out to buy something.

Timeframe for establishing this countrywide? cost? who pays? who's going to enforce it? who's going to pay for the enforcement? let alone the sheer weight (ha) of the bureaucracy involved in weighing the working population - how often would that have to be done? and adjusting their NI accordingly.

The problem is is they replaced sugar with sweeteners. Sweeteners have been shown to actually increase obesity so it was an own goal. (And less of course you produce diet products and then ...kerching)

Make whole foods cheaper. Ensure everyone knows how to cook.

I have PCOS and have been begging my gp for help for years. I just keep getting told to exercise (I do!) and to lose weight/eat well (again, I do!)

Even walking 5+ miles a day at work and not eating massive amounts, I can barely shift anything but can't get any help! It feels like I'm not believed - I even did a week's food diary with photos and got told I must be snacking or filling up on junk! (I don't snack in general!)

Proper, genuine cookery classes in school. It’s shocking how many people don’t know the basics about food and cooking, hence the dependence on ready meals and processed convenience foods.

Forgot to say my PCOS has never been formally diagnosed - even though I have all of the symptoms! GP just isn't interested!

Better public transport and more flexible work hours.

More support for those with disabilities or caring responsibilities.

Better local facilities (I.e. I am in a relatively affluent london Borough and have no swimming pool easily accessible without driving. It is about the only thing I have to drive for?

I am not convinced we can "shame" people into losing weight, nor that we should. But a lot of overweight people I see work long hours and juggle many responsibilities. Culturally, grab food and eat at desks/in front of TV/etc seems prevalent which can't be good for health and relationship with food.

why chocolates and crisps? Margarine and vegetable oil are more damaging

Limit car use as much as possible.

I think it's pretty obvious why chocolate and crisps (with the possible exception of 85/90/95% or pure chocolate).

why chocolates and crisps? Margarine and vegetable oil are more damaging

Not all veg oils, some are healthy or neutral. We need 'good' fats (which are mostly oils) in our diets.
People don't buy those on impulse and eat them immediately- you have to do something with them.

More time for people to cook, so not dashing round trying to do multiple jobs.
Easier access to shops. Supermarkets are usually out of town or in difficult to walk to places so you end up at the local corner shop which mainly stocks convenience food.
Maybe price cars out of some city areas but how the hell am I supposed to earn a living if I have to walk children 1.5 miles to the bus stop every day? We have to be at the bus for 8am anyway. The children would be walking 3 miles a day and I’d be walking 6. Fewer cars on the road wouldn’t make any difference to the lane we live on as all the traffic iS feed wagons, cattle wagons and fast moving tractors because they’re driving upto 10 miles away from the main farm for grass, manure etc.

Have swimming free for all. The pools are there anyway! Or at the very least make it free for all children, plus an accompanying adult.
Stop closing play parks.

I'd like to be able to have access to healthier food when on the go. They do this better in other countries but here it's so easy to find garbage for example when stopping in a service station the choices are often crap but Tebay etc show it can be done.

I find it hard to eat tasteless vegetables, I'm not a lover of veg but go out of my way to get good quality ones and pay extra for that. Not everyone can do that.

Still find it incredible that pubs and restaurants can fit so many calories in meals, see also fat salt and sugar.

Our supermarkets are really uninspiring places to shop. Love going to European supermarkets when abroad.

Make healthy food the least expensive to buy and start teaching cooking/food tech / healthy eating in schools from a young age (and that's actual cooking not stupid stuff or meals that take four hours to make.)
Bring back actual pe and get children properly active every day. Make it convenient/rewarding for adults to get some exercise too.

Too many adults have no ability to actually cook and/or no time to spend an hour or two cooking a meal and even less time to head to a gym even if they could afford membership.

The country has changed and any solution has to recognise that a lot of people don't have time or energy to cook fancy meals from scratch every day. When people are cash poor, time poor and energy poor, solutions have to factor that in.

Sweeteners do not increase obesity. There is some evidence that sweeteners are associated with a small weight gain, but it is thought that the weight gain is due to overcompensation.

The sugar tax has been associated with a significant decrease in obesity and dental admissions in children.

https://www.ukri.org/news/sugary-drinks-tax-may-have-prevented-over-5000-cases-of-obesity/

Early intervention for children, they don't get overweight unless their family is overfeeding them. Parents need to be held responsible for this.

Access to cheap, affordable, council ran swimming pools, gyms etc in every larger town/city. Our council pool was £1.80 to swim, it was then bought out by a private company, its now £8.90 unless you have their £50 a month gym membership.

More exercise in schools

I remember the days when large employers, with large buildings, used to have canteens on site serving healthy cheap meals to their staff. I don't know many of them any more.

More mental health support, and better women's health care.

Available healthy food
I'm trying to eat healthily and I find it increasingly difficult to buy healthy food on the go. Plenty of places to get chocolate and crisps etc. you try and buy something healthy from a services or train station