A Bulging Growth Problem We Can Ill Afford…

Neville Rigby is setting out his stall for the coalition government on the subject of obesity. His credentials?

Well, he’s director of the European Obesity Forum, strategic adviser to the National Obesity Forum and an international strategy consultant and writer focusing on health policy. He is former director of policy and public affairs at the International Obesity Task Force.

So it’s no surprise that his arguments are flabby and lethargic…

What shall we tell the children? It's a common enough question in these straitened times. As financial gloom touches everyone's lives and livelihoods, it is well to recognise that social and economic deprivation and the physiological stress factors associated with chronic poverty provide the fertile conditions in which ill health, including obesity, can flourish.

‘It is well’ for people like Neville, that is. He has to eat too!

But these aren't the only factors that relate to the pressing need to take effective action on what must be one of the government's primary health concerns.

There are many pressing needs on this government’s radar, but I really don’t think the ‘obesity crisis’ is the main one…

With the launch of National Childhood Obesity Week, the coalition is challenged by the National Obesity Forum and Mend, a social enterprise helping obese children, to set out a clear strategy for coping with the problem.

Well, here’s a nice target for the axe, them. Good of them to put their heads above the parapet like that, isn’t it?

Backed by many like-minded NGOs, they want Andrew Lansley to make commitments to do far better than his predecessors in galvanising "big society" into action.

Here’s hoping he takes the opportunity. To kick you and your organisations into touch.

Many public health staff with responsibility for obesity initiatives fear that the wind is already being taken out of their sails as posts are left vacant, staff have to double up, resources for commissioning are limited, and there remains a real dearth of quality training for the many and varied professions required to engage with the obesity issue…

In other words, many people who’ve made a tidy living out of this entirely bogus health ‘epidemic’ are starting to feel the cold wind of change, and to fear for their cosy sinecures.

Good. More please, faster…

The undeclared reality is that despite all the travelling circus of conferences, the plethora of reports and the best efforts of serious scientific endeavour embodied in the Foresight report, no one has achieved a really coherent cross-government, society-wide effort to tackle obesity in a way that would have any real impact on the figures.

So, despite all the taxpayer money you’ve had poured down your throats, you’ve managed to achieve the square root of bugger all, have you?

Well, time to pull the plug then!

… the challenge to the coalition is to show its colours: will it back a robust and effective attack on the causes of the elevated levels of childhood overweight and obesity presently standing at about 30% overall, or merely resume handing around the calorie-laden fudge that guarantees future governments will be contending with a massive obesity epidemic and the disastrous social, economic and health consequences for the rest of the century.

I think – I hope – it’ll be showing you the door.