Children’s Health: Ultra-processed Foods

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, in this debate it is very important to consider the science and history of the obesity epidemic. The history is that the food industry in the 1960s promoted a low-fat, low-fibre diet, which makes people eat more and become obese. Science has exposed the errors of the food industry; the science is that when fat enters the duodenum, it releases from the duodenal mucosa a hormone called CCK, which delays the emptying of the stomach and makes the patient feel full early on in a meal. It is a beautiful mechanism for preventing obesity, which is why the food industry hates that mechanism and keeps on recommending a low-fat diet, which is so tasteless that it had to add large quantities of sugar to entice people to eat its rather tasteless products.

A recent study from Canada revealed that thousands of children fed on whole milk, with plenty of fat, were much less likely to be obese than those who were not so fed. Unfortunately, the Department of Health seems to be obsessed with low-fat diets, in spite of the evidence. I even had a letter just last month from a Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health, who again recommended a low-fat diet.

The removal of fat and fibre, in the form of wholemeal bread and vegetables, increases appetite and obesity. That is why we must ensure that food contains plenty of fibre and the right kind of fat. Highly processed foods appeared many years later than the beginning of the obesity epidemic and much more work needs to be done to determine exactly how appetite stimulators are supposed to work.

Another important misleading aspect is the great emphasis on telling obese people that the whole subject is so confusing, difficult and multifactorial. It is just telling them, “Well, it’s just one of those things, and you don’t need to bother too much”. They say anyway that it is genetic. What do they mean by that? It does not matter what your genetics are, there is only one way of becoming obese: by putting too many calories into the mouth. We need much more scientific work to reveal how much genetics could increase obesity. There has also been an attempt to glamorise obesity, stating that you can be “fat and fit”. The paper that purported to make that claim is very superficial and incomplete.

In summary, we need to emphasise the fact that the removal of fat and fibre and the insertion of sugar has caused the obesity epidemic. We do not need complicated formulae like BMI. It is best to keep things simple. A simple slogan is: if your waist measurement is more than half your height, you are eating too much of the gross national product and you are on the road potentially to a premature death from a variety of very unpleasant diseases.