Greed isn't good and fatness must not be tolerated

MAN IS an obesogenic organism. I suppose you knew that. Man is geared greedily to gobble up everything that is put before him and to lie around resting between meals.

This Homer Simpson approach was a sensible strategy for hunter-gatherers for whom food was scarce and life arduous. You ate what and when you could because you knew the next meal was never guaranteed. Those who followed that regime were the ones who survived to pass on their genes. That behaviour is now hard-wired into us.

Unfortunately, that model of man is not quite fit for today's society, which offers both a surfeit of calorie-dense food intensely promoted to us and a lifestyle that encourages us to graze on the move and discourages exercise.

So we are getting fatter. Every week a new statistic is published demonstrating how much weight we've put on. More than 2,000 people in the UK are too fat to work, almost two thirds of Scots men and half of all Scots women are overweight or obese, and 90 per cent of our children eat too much saturated fat. The problem now starts in babies as young as three months old.

We see the evidence all around us. But these grossly overweight people struggling up stairs, squeezing through doors and panting their way around the shops are just the tip of a huge iceberg. In the Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board area, more worrying for health professionals is that the population as a whole is getting fatter – by an average of a kilogram a year. Even the thin are getting less thin. It's easily done. All it needs is an extra 33 calories a day to put on two pounds three ounces a year. Not much, but over ten years that's an extra stone and a half.

Food is getting cheaper. It now accounts for only 10 per cent of the average household's budget, as opposed to 40 per cent some 60 years ago. And it is being pushed down our throats by unscrupulous multinational food corporations.

This commercialisation of eating might make for private profit but it comes at great cost to society. Obesity costs the NHS in Scotland 400 million a year. Hospitals have to spend millions on specialist equipment such as larger beds, operating tables and body scanners. And they have to treat the diseases triggered by obesity: heart disease, cancer and diabetes.

The problem is getting worse and present policy has not had any success against it. The Scottish Government spends 56m on initiatives urging people to lose weight. Much public policy is centred around exhortations for healthy eating. It urges people to fight their natural instincts to overeat.

It is ineffective because it calls for more willpower than people have. To lose that stone and a half demands sticking to a 1,000 calories a day diet for well over a year. Experience tells us that it just won't happen. Apart from fighting their genes, people have to resist the cultural and social pressures that incessantly push food at them. Now many doctors have concluded that for the grossly obese surgery is the only answer.

Society does not encourage slimness. The opposite, in fact, because despite all the official hand-wringing, we are adjusting to obesity rather than resisting it. Cinema seats are being made larger, fashion favours looser clothes, employment law prevents discrimination against fatties. We're giving in and giving up.

It seems incredible that the National Health Service, whose job it is to take the lead, is forced to tolerate fat employees. And how can fat teachers show kids the way? It is even difficult to discipline overweight firefighters or police officers whose performance is clearly tied to fitness and fatness. In many cases it is the law that prevents employers from securing a fitter workforce. However, even without anti-discrimination legislation we do not have a taste for bluntly pointing out to the obese how much harm they are doing to themselves and what a drag they are on the rest of us.

There is a misguided political correctness preventing discrimination against fat people when a bit of ostracising might well be in their own best interests. Because fat people earn less, are more likely to be bullied and are overlooked for promotion.

Victim blaming may be wrong for people who suffer genuine medical problems or for those trapped in poverty and deprivation. But for the rest who simply can't be bothered to look after their weight a policy of public disapproval might help their motivation. Such intolerance worked against drink-drivers and smokers as cultural attitudes against them gradually hardened.

A society that is intolerant of fat people and that wages campaigns against them may be seen as draconian and controlling. But sick people harm society. So society must fight back against those who have no excuse for not leading healthy lives. Dr Phil Hanlon, professor of public health at the University of Glasgow, has a far-sighted solution. He argues that the predicted energy crisis and the need to limit our carbon footprints will inevitably lead to dearer and scarcer food and to necessary limits on the use of private cars. This, he says, is an opportunity for us now to begin to redesign our lifestyles.

Adding the fight against obesity to the green agenda will give people a bigger reason to limit their consumption of food than simply personal fitness. They will be tackling the health of the planet as well as their own. Thus, following official advice on eating will become liberating and empowering. Fat people will be seen as bad citizens. Motivation and willpower will be strengthened.

There will be incredible resistance to a much more aggressive approach to obesity than the gentle "do a little, change a lot" message of current campaigns. Just as the tobacco companies fought restrictions on smokers, so will the food lobby portray it as an encroachment on individual freedom. So will people who just like their food. The track record of Scottish politicians to make unpopular decisions on health policy is unconvincing. They shied away from fluoridation – the guaranteed safe way to protect children's teeth – because of ignorant public opposition. Nor have they shown much personal leadership over this, the main health challenge of modern society.

Look how First Minster Alex Salmond has inflated over the years. He cannot be ignorant of the problem or of how much his lead could be used to kick-start a solution. Because there is one thing you can say about this smooth politician. He's no caveman.