Fizzy drinks should be heavily taxed and junk food adverts banished until after the watershed, doctors have said, in a call for action over obesity.
The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, which represents nearly every doctor in the UK, said ballooning waistlines already constituted a "huge crisis".
Its report said current measures were failing and called for unhealthy foods to be treated more like cigarettes.
Industry leaders said the report added little to the debate on obesity.
The UK is one of the most obese nations in the world with about a quarter of adults classed as obese. That figure is predicted to double by 2050 - a third of primary school leavers are already overweight.
Doctors fear that a rising tide of obesity will pose dire health consequences for the nation.
The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges is a "united front" of the medical profession from surgeons to GPs and psychiatrists to paediatricians. It says its doctors are seeing the consequences of unhealthy diets every day and that it has never come together on such an issue before.
More here.
2 comments:
This was the lead story on Channel 4 news earlier this evening and many good points were raised. It would have been nice if more time could have been given but of course coverage also had to be given to other news.
Would it help to tax fizzy drinks? Well possibly yes it would, although like wine the price of this is raised but we still purchase it and perhaps wait for those special offers, the same will of course happen to fizzy drinks.
When it comes to junk food you have to question what is determined by junk food. The industry advertises low fat yogurt, low fat desserts, low fat quorn - but what is low fat normally means more sugar, more sugar usually means increased weight, and so the vicious circle keeps going.
The adverts, education news, teaching at school etc should all focus on the word healthy, wholesome and un-processed foods, sugar certainly needs to be cut down, anything with the last three letters ose i.e. glucose, fructose keep away from it isn't needed in our diet.
Just thinking out loud, but with the emphasis on our diets so much in the news at the moment fizzy drinks tax, the horse meat scandal, this really good be the optimum moment to do something positive.
Now there is a great thought
Anne
"this really good be the optimum moment to do something positive."
What we are eating, where the food chain goes - apparently round the whole of Europe and back! is definitely big news at the moment, the politicians are a dab hand at getting our mind off other even more serious subjects. That aside, however, I do agree we seem to be at a point in time when something good may come and people will become more wary of what they eat and make wiser choices. Eating fresh meat and vegetables and reducing sugar and starch intake would be an excellent start.
Time will tell of course
Jean
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