Obesity – we will fight it on the beaches…

Our sharing, caring Government has just announced the launch of what (it claims) will be a £75m media campaign against the growing national menace of obesity. In an attempt to nip the fatties in the bud, it will especially target the young.

The campaign aims to increase awareness of the substantial health risks in carting around large lumps of surplus flab. To back it up they claim great success in reducing smoking by hammering home the health risks in their campaign over the last twenty years. However, they fail to mention the other and, I’d guess, far more potent methods which they used to discourage tobacco use (and to raise revenue) – like the huge percentage of duty payable on a pack of fags, followed more recently by the indoor smoking bar.

If British fatties addicted to stuffing their faces with cheap noxious sweets and Big Mac&Fries were told they could only do it outside the building, in sub-zero  winter temperatures or the pissing rain, I have no doubt that a lot would opt for an indoor apple. Perhaps as smokers are, they should be banned from doing it even on open-air railway stations.

In addition, if every fat-creating foodstuff were taxed with an extra 200% to HMCR, many minds would be changed, and much useful revenue would be generated to cover the fatties’ subsequent health care costs. And it’s no good arguing that because some people don’t bulk out when they eat rubbish food, it would be unfair to tax it. Among smokers, there are many recorded instances of regular users living to a healthy old age, but they – and the slender junk munches – are the statistical exceptions.

I called for a tax on junk food on this blog last August and a few days later the French Government, recognising a good wheeze when they saw one, announced that they were instituting a Fat Food Tax. I should be grateful for any reports of how this is getting on.

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