Obesity and Boris Johnson’s Damascene conversion – The Yorkshire Post says

“I say let people eat what they like. Why shouldn’t they push pies through the railings?” declared an indignant Mr Johnson in 2006 when parents passed burgers and chips through the gates of a South Yorkshire school each lunchtime in defiance of a new policy on healthier meals.

How times change. After the PM learned that his own obesity actually exacerbated his vulnerability to Covid-19 during his own fight for life earlier this year, he is now contemplating whether the ban on online adverts for foods high in salt, sugar and fat.

A political intervention at odds with Mr Johnson’s libertarian instincts, he needs to remember that the obesity crisis was profound long before Covid-19 highlighting the consequences of unhealthy meals and lifestyles.

As such, there’s not a single policy cure – even if the PM became an unlikely fitness instructor in the mould of TV sensation Joe Wicks – and that it is going to require a sustained effort over many years, if not decades, to change the current trends.

First and foremost, it requires far more personal responsibility – two words that Ministers seem so reluctant to articulate – if people are to lead healthier lives and, in turn, ease the burden on the NHS, public transport and other key services. That’s the conversation which Mr Johnson now needs to be having with the country at large.

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James Mitchinson