Is it really true that obesity rates in England have stabilised or fallen, as has been reported today – and that, according to the Obesity Health Alliance, this may be down to things like junk food being removed from supermarket checkouts and calories being provided on menus?
While obesity rates have ballooned, smoking rates have collapsed
On the face of it there is one remarkable statistic in the latest figures provided by NHS England for 2022: 13 per cent of 2-15 year old boys were recorded as obese, down from a fifth in 2019 and the lowest figure since 1998. There were no figures produced for 2020 and 2021 owing to the pandemic.
Obesity among girls, however, is up from 13 per cent to 17 per cent, with overall figures for 2–15 year olds down from 16 per cent to 15 per cent. There has been no such fall among adults. In 2022, 28 per cent of men were obese, up from 27 per cent in 2019 and 24 per cent in 2012. The corresponding figures for women are 30 per cent, 29 per cent and 25 per cent. It will be interesting to see next years’ numbers to find out whether the apparent fall in obesity among children is sustained, or a quirk of the covid years.
Over the longer term, the picture still looks extremely grim. Age group by age group, the picture over the 30 years has been pretty much the same: while the number of people who are merely ‘overweight’ has been stable or falling, the number of people classified as obese has doubled or thereabouts. Among 16-24 year old males, the prevalence of obesity has risen from 5 per cent in 1993 to 11 per cent; among females it is up from 8 per cent to 17 per cent. Yet it is no less dramatic among older people: the proportion of 65-74 year old men who are obese has risen from 15 per cent to 36 per cent, and women from 22 per cent to 34 per cent.
Before anyone attempts to credit a levelling-off of obesity rates to government policies, such as crackdowns on shop displays of chocolate, calories on menus, the sugar tax on soft drinks or anything else, it is hard to ignore the huge difference in the approach towards obesity and smoking – and the equally vast gulf between the results in each case. While obesity rates have ballooned, smoking rates have collapsed. In 1992 28.4 per cent of adults smoked. By 2021 it was down to 12.7 per cent.
Cigarettes are highly taxed and have been subject to advertising bans and so on. But there is also a very big difference in approach. Smoking has been treated for what it is: a matter of personal choice and responsibility; but obesity has increasing been treated as if it were a disease, the cause of which is beyond the control of the individual. This is quite obviously not always the case: whether to eat a slice or cake – or indeed an entire cake – is as much under the control of the individual as is the decision to light a cigarette. Trying to reassure people that it is not their fault they are fat is not exactly encouraging people to change their behaviour.
A report by the British Psychological Society in 2019, for example, declared that 'the people who are most likely to be an unhealthy weight are those who have a high genetic risk of developing obesity and whose lives are also shaped by work, school and social environments that promote overeating and inactivity'. What about personal responsibility? It is, it seems, always someone else’s fault.
Researchers who compiled the report adopted what they called a 'holistic' approach, referring to ‘a person with obesity’ rather than an ‘obese person’. Elsewhere, we have heard calls not to 'fat shame' people; it's as if the very act of asserting that individuals might have at least a measure of control over how much they eat is tantamount to putting them in the stocks.
Under a Labour Prime Minister, who has told us to expect more state control over our lives, and which has already a announced a ban on junk food TV adverts before the 9pm watershed, we can expect a lot more in the way of nanny state measures to prohibit or tax the sale of certain foods. But so long as we have a cottage industry of campaigners telling us it is no fault of our own if we put on weight we are unlikely to see any significant fall in obesity.
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