Obesity: Food and Diet

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) on securing this important debate. There was a lot in his speech with which I agreed, and a lot with which I disagreed. I do not want to explore the subject of childhood obesity, although I think that many of his points about it are quite important; I want to focus on adult obesity.

There are a great many new Members in the Chamber who do not know who I am, so they will not have seen me when I was enormously fat, before I was down to the size I am now. I have struggled with my weight throughout my life, but I have controlled it for several years. Back in 2019 I managed to lose 4 stone through smoking. Cigarettes provided a way for me to diet and keep the weight off. I gave up smoking in May 2022—we do not need to have a debate about smoking and what it does to people—and put on a considerable amount of weight.

There is always a lot of stigma surrounding weight. Everything about weight is stigmatised, whether we are too thin or too fat or dieting—and, by the way, everyone has advice for us when we are dieting. It does not matter what is working; they will say, “What you need to do is this.” I will come on to the weight loss regime that I am on at the moment, but they will say, for instance, “You shouldn’t be giving up drinking, because you will lose your social life.” Well, going to the small Yorkshire village where I live and having several pints over a few hours means having a lot of empty calories—thousands of them—so that is exactly what someone who is trying to lose weight should do; but people always give that advice.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned 400 incidences, but what that statistic did not say about the damage that the jabs, as we call them, can do is that half a million people are having them. We are in danger of getting into the same arguments that some of the nutters who talk about the covid jab have got themselves into—that it is deadly and we are poisoning everyone; and this, that and the other. It is administered to millions of people, and drugs will always have side effects. That is something we must remember. The contraceptive pill, used by millions of people, has side effects. Drugs do have side effects, but that is not a reason to rule them out.

I want to expand on this stigma about the jabs. As I said at the outset, I am focusing today on adult obesity, and as I also said, the hon. Member for Stroud made some important points about childhood obesity and the links with food, but much of what he said was based on the idea that people have three meals a day and they are eating too much. That has not been my experience. Many Members, especially new Members, will learn how exhausting this job becomes. At some points in their career, they will ask themselves, “How do I carry on?” and they will turn to sugar to get them through the rest of the day. I see plenty of Members nodding. They will have chocolate bars, because that is the boost we need and that is where we end up. I have done that.

I have what some might describe as an addictive personality: when I cut something out, I replace it with something else. When I cut out cigarettes, I replaced them with food. It has been a difficult journey. I tried to eat healthily and I tried to do things with my weight, but I reached a point at which I could not do it. In the middle of September, I started taking Wegovy, and since then I have lost over 5 stone. I have gone from a body mass index of 42 to one of 30, although there are still a couple of stone that I want to lose. But—and this is the big “but”—people have to work with it. These are not miracle drugs. The biggest mistake that the press made in this regard was referring to “fat-dissolving drugs”. There is no such thing as a fat-dissolving drug; that is blatant nonsense. For me, this drug takes away the cravings. It has enabled me to do the intermittent fasting, having a protein-based meal at 1 pm, a banana at 5 pm and a small meal in the evening with a tiny bit of carbohydrate, and I do not eat after 9 pm. That is how I have dropped the weight.

I cut out drinking for the first eight weeks, although I did drink over Christmas, and I cut out sugar for 12 weeks. I want to build on something that the hon. Member for Stroud said about sugar being a drug. Oh boy, yes, it is a drug. I felt horrific for the first three weeks of cutting out sugar. Having had a little bit of sugar over Christmas, I thought, “It is Christmas; you have to manage the psychology of this.” Well, the first time I had one mince pie, boy, did I know about it! I had to have some grapes later to try to bring about the slow sugar release. There is no doubt that high sugar and salt levels are addictive, but I have a personality that made me do that.

A very interesting point was made on Radio 4 last week. Emma Barnett was interviewing someone about this drug—I missed who it was. She said, “But isn’t there the question of morality when people use drugs to reduce their weight?” This is where I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of obesity in adults and the issue of weight. What is now emerging is a link, a thread that runs through several aspects of someone’s health, not least related to fatigue, mental health or personality, and what is being discovered is that the drugs have a positive effect in many of those areas.

We need to remove the stigma from talking about being on drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro. They are certainly helping me, and I know of many friends and many colleagues in the House who are using them, because they do take away that craving. However, it still comes down to willpower. I stand before Members today, and I feel horrific. I have consumed less than 600 calories so far today and it is now 7.10 pm. I do not feel great, but it is working. I am engaged in a process in which I am trying to lose the weight in the first six months, and in the next six months I will go back to the normal number of calories, do the exercise and build up my fitness. This is a programme and a regime, and it is working for me.

However, I must make the point that if people are not willing to work with these drugs, they will not have the effect. There must be a “brake” in their promotion, because people who think they can just inject themselves at home and lose weight are wrong. It is so easy to cheat. Why do I not feel too great at the moment? There are not enough calories in me. What would give me a boost straight away? Some chocolate, or anything like that. When I cut out sugar, I cut out crisps, cakes, biscuits and various other things, including alcohol for a while. I am not going teetotal for the rest of my life, and I am not cutting out sugar for the rest of my life. People have to find a balance, but it is easy to cheat and they have to want to lose weight.

There is no correlation here, but I think there is an interesting piece of work to be done—I will explain why I am saying this in a moment—on the fact that there has been a huge reduction in smoking in the 21st century and a big rise in obesity. I certainly used cigarettes to help keep my weight down, and I know that many other people do too. If someone feels hungry, they can have a cigarette. I am delighted that I gave up smoking; it took me most of my life to do so. I smoked for most of my adult life, and I have drunk a lot for most of my adult life. I am 49 years old, and I was in my twenties in the 1990s. There was a culture in the ’90s that carried on through.

Why did we push forward with getting people off smoking? We did it because of the absolutely obvious and well-proven health consequences of smoking, such as thrombosis, heart attacks and high blood pressure. Since I have lost 5 stone, my blood pressure has come down by 30 millibars; it is now textbook blood pressure. The hon. Member for Stroud is absolutely right. I had pain in my joints and feet, and I would sweat, but I would not give in to it. When my feet hurt, I would not give in to it, because I thought, “If I give in to it, I’m just going to put on even more weight.” I would not stop, because I have always been fairly active and have kept going.

I make these points because I recently heard a report that if weight-loss jabs were put out on NHS prescription, it would bankrupt the NHS. I think that is absolute nonsense, because we know just how preventive this sort of action is. That is why we got people to give up smoking. We made a lot of tax from the sale of cigarettes, but it cost the NHS billions of pounds. We know that a lot of the conditions that cigarettes cause are equally caused by obesity, along with many other things. Again, the use of weight-loss jabs could prevent the NHS from spending much more money later on diabetes care, orthopaedic care and mental health care. We know that people find being inactive depressing, quite frankly, and that their mental health takes a decline when they become inactive.

We have to separate the issues of childhood obesity and adult obesity, which are two very different things. For those of us who end up starved of sleep, and those who end up never knowing when they will have a proper meal or where they will get it from, it is easy to fall into the traps. I have often found that people who have never had a problem with their weight are full of all the answers for those who do struggle with their weight, who may well tell others what they are doing and then be told, “No, what you want to be doing is this.” It is nonsense.

The use of weight-loss jabs offers the NHS a real advantage, but we have to reduce the stigma and it is right that we ask whether it is moral to use drugs to reduce people’s wight. A lot of people do not have a choice about their weight, and they are now discovering that a small dose of hormonal drugs helps them to control their desire to eat. The long-term effects of obesity on the country’s health, and on the pressure on the NHS, will be reduced. When I become 7 stone lighter than I was back in September, there is no doubt that my health situation will have a far better outlook than it did, and that is the conversation we should be having when it comes to adults.

There has been enough commenting on whether somebody is stick thin or really fat, and enough advice about what people should do to lose weight. We now have some answers that will actually make a difference, and we have to say, “These are the right things to do,” as we do with so many other drugs that help people get through their lives. We do not comment on people using nicotine patches or nicotine gum, yet we do talk about people who are trying to do things to help them lose weight.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

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[Ben Coleman]

The right hon. Member makes an excellent point that I will come to in a moment.

The additives that cause so much harm today have simpler names: sugar, salt and fats. In moderation, all of those are fine, but the problem is that they are being shoved into our food willy-nilly in an effort to preserve it and—on the right hon. Member’s point—to make it cheap, alongside making it more addictive by design. As a result, we have what the House of Lords Food, Diet and Obesity Committee’s report rightly describes as a public health emergency. We now have one of the highest rates of obesity among high-income nations. Only tobacco shortens British lives more than poor diet.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke]

The hon. Gentleman is making some very important points. I would add that adult obesity is not necessarily down to the kinds of food that he has outlined. When people are tired or feeling depressed, just the satiation of eating—even if it is healthy and they are eating more than they should—has the same effect. I used to have cigarettes, which did that, and sometimes people drink to do it, but it could also be done with healthy food. It is about quantities that cannot always be controlled, and there is a bigger link. I totally agree with what the hon. Gentleman is saying about these addictive substances, but they are not the only part of the puzzle.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jas Athwal (Ilford South) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) for securing this much-needed debate. I also thank the right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke) for sharing his testimony about how he lost 7 stone in such a short time—I tip my turban to him.

I have my own story. I lost 2 stone in two months because of what a doctor told me. Forget the nanny state: he said to me in no uncertain terms, “If you don’t lose weight, you won’t be here in a couple of years’ time.” I went home reeling from that news and did exactly what he told me to do. I lost the weight, had a fantastic body mass index and then I went back for my tests.

However, let me be clear: people cannot undo 20, 30 or 40 years of damage. If we lose somebody, we wish we could have had an extra day to say goodbye, to thank them or just speak to them one more time. Obesity, which leads to so many other diseases, robs people of five, 10 or 15 years of their lives, and means grandchildren are not able to speak to their grandparents. Why? Because those grandparents have passed away. We have to take that on board and counter it.

When I went back for my tests, I asked for an extra test, because I am one of those people who likes to be told—I am quite vain—how fit and healthy I am. I asked for an extra scan, and I got it. To my shock and horror, that extra scan revealed one of my arteries was completely blocked and the other, the left anterior descending artery, affectionately known as the “widow maker”, was 95% blocked, even though I had cycled 85 km the previous day. Very quickly, I went into Barts hospital where I underwent triple heart bypass surgery, and I lived to tell the tale. It was all because of years of decline.

While some conditions cannot be avoided, obesity can. When I say that my BMI was 27, the answer is always that BMI is not something to be relied on, but it is the best scale we have. In Ilford South, where 75% are from the Asian subcontinent, 25 is not the BMI number we should be looking at—it should be 23. I am struggling myself, because my BMI is hovering at 24. Another cultural shift is needed—it Is a cultural problem—because when people look at me, having lost 2 stone, they say, “Are you okay? You look unhealthy.”

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke]

I chuckled to myself when the hon. Gentleman said that, because people ask me if something is seriously wrong. He emphasises the point that weight, whether thin or fat, is a stigmatised subject. Even when people are trying to get themselves healthy, they get criticism. We have to expose that and get on top of it.

[Jas Athwal]

I absolutely agree. People have come round to check on me and ask me whether I really am okay or if I have an underlying problem, because I have lost so much weight. The only downside to losing weight is that it is very expensive—I have needed a new wardrobe.

Obesity is the leading preventable cause of death. Imagine the prize of an extra five, 10 or 15 years with loved ones: tackling obesity can give people more time with those they love. Obesity costs the NHS billions of pounds and impacts many livelihoods. In my constituency of Ilford South, obesity rates are 10% higher than in the rest of London. My neighbours and their loved ones are struggling and suffering unnecessarily.

The obesity crisis is threefold. Access to affordable, healthy food has decreased, while the prevalence of processed food and fast-food outlets has increased. In Ilford, the number of fast-food outlets has grown by a staggering 47.1% in just the last 10 years. Nearly a third of children in my constituency are overweight. They are bombarded with adverts everywhere on their way to school. Even worse, youth clubs have dwindled, leaving many young people with fewer warm places to go after school to enjoy themselves, exercise and socialise.

The affordability of healthy food, the accessibility of unhealthy food and reduced support for young people have fostered an environment in which unhealthy habits are growing. People do not even know how to cook, which causes a crisis of obesity, robs children of the best start in life and sets them up for a lifetime of health problems. We need to be bold enough to confront the growing trend, which is why we are here today. To tackle the accessibility of unhealthy food, Redbridge council set out a local plan to ban fast food outlets 400 metres from school gates, but were they banned? They were not. The Mayor of London’s plan says the same thing. We need to give planning policies the necessary teeth to stop fast food outlets opening right outside schools, and the adverts that bombard our children on the way to and from school.

To increase the affordability of healthy food, we have to work with charities. In Redbridge, we are working with a food bank to create facilities to store fresh fruit and vegetables. Last Friday, I had the privilege of being shown the food bank’s new premises, which we had been working on for the past 18 months. I was shown the cold storage where we will store vegetables. It was mentioned earlier that food banks should be able to store vegetables, because that is the healthy way forward. To give young people a place to go after school, we led investments in local youth centres. We need a holistic approach. We need to look at not just food itself but everything in society.

On a national scale, we have to make changes to protect young people from obesity. The Government must do that by fulfilling our Labour manifesto commitment to ensure that children are no longer exposed to TV adverts for junk food. We have banned paid online junk food adverts, preventing the overexposure of young people to unhealthy, processed and fatty foods, but we can and must do more. As has been mentioned two or three times, we must move away from viewing obesity through the lens of judgment, and confront the ways we have allowed unhealthy choices to be the easiest choices. We must break down the barriers to healthy eating, prevent the manipulation and exploitation of young people, and support everyone to live healthier lives.