Obesity

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on introducing this very important subject. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, on her outstanding maiden speech; she delivered it with passion and knowledge, and we look forward to hearing further contributions from her.

To my mind, there are three elements to obesity: first, the type of food that we eat; secondly and most importantly, the quantity that we eat; and, thirdly, the exercise that we take or fail to take. I feel that the debate in this country has focused far too heavily on the first aspect. We have demonised some foods and not paid enough attention to maintaining a balanced died and burning off the calories that we consume. There are no bad foods, only bad diets. Any food eaten in excess and to the exclusion of others is bad for a person.

For years the Department of Health had a vendetta against dairy products—milk and cheese—based on old, discredited research that fat products were bad for one. I can safely say that when I was Food Minister many years ago, every bit of advice that I was told by our health experts to issue to the public was countermanded at least twice over the next few years. Can any noble Lord tell me authoritatively how many glasses of red wine you should take each day? It seems to change every year whether or not one is pregnant. No wonder there is public cynicism about government diktats on food.

Nothing was sillier than taking action against sugary drinks but not against the giant cakes and buns now prevalent in all Starbucks, Caffè Neros and other similar places. A few years ago, a croissant was a little thing about five inches long. Now they are gigantic things about 10 inches long and stuffed with chocolate. Many mornings, I witness people popping into a Starbucks near here and ordering their decaf soy skinny lattes—and then a chocolate chip muffin. We used to have something called fairy cakes or angel cakes when I was a boy, but now there are gigantic muffins at 650 calories apiece, which is one-third of a woman’s recommended daily intake.

That brings me to the second problem: the amount that we consume. The official recommendations for calorie intake are 2,500 for men and 2,000 for women, but those were set way back in 1990 in the US. In fact the Library tells me that the first ones were suggested by a splendid American called Wilbur Olin Atwater in 1888. They are generations out of date and were set at a time when we were a much more active population, when children played outside rather than sitting in their bedrooms texting, when we walked to school rather than being carted, and when more adults were doing manual work. It is nonsensical to retain these grossly excessive calorie levels now. What is worse is that they are being exceeded. Apparently many of those who know about the levels and want to follow them do not realise that they are exceeding them on a daily basis, while the other half of the population either do not know or do not care. We seem to be waiting for a magic pill so that that we can continue our gluttony and our lazy lifestyles in the hope that the NHS will fix it for us without having to change our behaviour one iota. Apparently Public Health England now suggests a guideline of 1,800 calories but does not want to change the advice of 2,500 and 2,000. What stupidity is that?

When I was in the 51st (Highland) Division I would eat a huge fry-up for breakfast, an enormous lunch and an even bigger dinner—about 5,000 calories a day—and I lost weight and was fit. Now I do not do much exercise. In fact I do not do any at all; I sit on my backside all the time. If I consume more than 1,000 calories a day then I put on weight. What a major scientific breakthrough that is: if we scoff more calories than we burn off then we get fat and obese.

Obesity is not an illness; it is a lifestyle choice. We are creating a nation of fat, idle people who will bankrupt the NHS, and we should have the courage to say so in blunt terms. Our strategy must be threefold. First, it must tax excessively sugary foods—all of them, not just some—and penalise excessively large food items. Secondly, calorie intake guidance must be revised downwards to recognise our indolent, lazy lifestyle. We need constant campaigns on that. Planning guidance should force councils not to have high streets full of takeaway food shops; research suggests that locations with supermarkets provide better diets than streets without such shops. Thirdly, we must have a huge campaign to get the whole nation exercising. Exercise alone does not compensate for overeating but it has a part to play. I too commend the Daily Mile initiative, which gets children exercising for a mere 15 minutes per day. It should be compulsory in all schools. My wife has tried to force me to do it as well.

There is no easy answer, but at the moment I do not think we are even asking the right questions.