Michael Kelly: Time to take on the big boys and fight obesity

The long, slow fight against the food industries’ attempts to poison us took two small steps forward this week.

First the UK government has launched a consultation process on food labelling. Secondly, there have been renewed calls, based on persuasive research, for a tax on fatty foods.

Obesity is not just a Scottish problem. But we’re very good at it, comfortably tucked in after the US at the top of the league. Well over a quarter of Scots are clinically obese and over two-thirds are overweight. Children are at most risk because fat children grow into fatter adults with all the health problems that entails – from coronary heart disease and strokes to diabetes. The Scottish Government is well aware of this problem. But despite plans, promotions and “route maps” to better health the problem – particularly among kids is getting worse. And it costs a fortune – at least £500 million a year. By 2030 the cost to the NHS could be as high as £3 billion per annum.

While the relief of poverty – paradoxically children from deprived backgrounds are fatter on average – must be included in any long term attack on this cost to society, it is surely time to make a direct assault on the food industries that are stuffing this fat down children’s throats. We are witnessing daily through the Leveson Inquiry how uncontrolled media can damage democracy. The food industries are another powerful commercial pressure group.

Sure, there are health and safety and food standards and all the other controls introduced against as fierce a resistance as that which fought the Factory Acts of the 19th century. But, the sale through the distorted promotion of food and drink that is bad for the health, has escaped unchallenged.

Have a look at the British Heart Foundation’s website. There you can plan a campaign to sell Lard Bars to kids. First, stick happy kids doing health things in your commercial, add some brand characters from a favourite kids’ show (no restrictions on this), offer free gifts, post some slick games to your website and, as three-quarters of children between 12 and 15 use social media sites, communicate directly with kids on those sites. Sit back and watch the money roll in while society picks up the tag. .

The fact that the UK government is going out to long and expensive consultation on such a straightforward issue as food labelling shows the power of the manufacturers and retailers. We know what foods cause the problem so the simple logic is to label those which contain large amounts of dangerous substances like sugar, fat, saturates and salt plus the amount of calories with red, amber and green “traffic lights” to allow shoppers quickly to assess what are the healthier foods. But the industry is resisting this for a variety of spurious reasons. They don’t like any package food marked red. They want to provide more and more sophisticated information. But all that will do is confuse consumers who make their purchase decision in seconds and have no time to waste working out from detailed conflicting data what is best. The food industries’ stance is simply a delaying tactic putting off the evil day for as long as they can. It is a sign of the government’s weakness, and its close ties with the industry, that it refuses to take the advice of professional health workers and scientists expert in the field and go ahead with legislation.

But hardly has the government pushed one challenge on to the back burner than another group of experts proposes an even more tricky one. Researchers in England have proposed that unhealthy food be taxed more heavily. Such a tax would shift consumption away from these foods in more healthy directions. To achieve that shift the tax would have to be at least 20 per cent. If that were done it would reduce obesity rates by 3.5 per cent and deaths in Scotland by 220 per year.

This is not just a predictive model. It is backed by hard evidence. In one US test it was found that a 35 per cent increase in the price of sugary drinks reduced sales by 26 per cent. And why shouldn’t it?

But supermarkets won’t wear this one. A spokesman has already come out with the standard defence, “It would be ineffective, unfair and lead to job losses.” I’ll accept all of those as the cost of a healthier population and a smaller burden on doctors and nurses.

It will, naturally, be embraced enthusiastically by the SNP government. Whether or not Holyrood has the powers to introduce such a measure is an argument the First Minister might have to take to Brussels. He’s already on his way there with the new tax on alcohol – a sensible measure to attack another of the pillars of Scotland’s ill-health. His government’s support for that measure has set the precedent for believing that it would be effective in improving health.

Of course it would restrict choice. But I am no libertarian. If people make bad choices, especially ones which impact adversely on the rest of us, they should be made to pay for them. A financial penalty is less onerous than refusing to treat over-weight people on the NHS until they reduce their body mass index – although we should try that as well.

It is time to get tough on Scotland’s health. Some progress is being made on the education front. However, the determination of the food industries to insist on overfeeding our young and the huge budgets that they devote to the promotion of unhealthy eating demand draconian measure be taken against them.

There is nothing tyrannical in the present proposals. They simply represent new battlegrounds in this fight against big business.

A quarter of all Scottish deaths – that’s 12,000 people – died last year as a result of heart disease or stroke. Reducing that percentage should be a goal that the First Minister should take personally.

If he followed his own government’s dietary advice and shrunk himself, what a really big man we would take him to be.