15 May The UK’s Obesity epidemic and if the government is doing enough to tackle it
From cuts in the recommended daily intake of sugar to the creation of weight-loss groups, but is any of this actually working? Jacob Dickinson reports.
According to a report published by the NHS, in 2016/17 there were 617 thousand admissions to hospitals throughout the UK where obesity was a factor. Not only is this a frightening number, but it is an increasing number.
In 2015/16, the admission rate were obesity was a factor was 18 per cent less than the figure in 2016/17. The same report then compares and adult from the year 1993 to an adult in the year 2016. The findings suggest that British adults in 2016 were 11 per cent more obese that British adults in the year 1993.
Comparing this figure to Europe, the UK is the most obese country in the continent, with 27.8 per cent of the population falling into the obese category, in 2nd place was Hungary, with 26.4 per cent of the population falling into the obese category and in 3rd place was Czech Republic with 26 per cent.
The NHS released a report in January 2014 that directly linked sugar to obesity. The report came via Action on sugar, a group of health specialists that are concerned about the implications that sugar consumption has on health. The report noted that “as well as being a major cause of obesity, there is increasing evidence that added sugar increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome and fatty liver”.
However, the report was met with criticism from Sugar Nutrition UK, who rejected the claims of Action on Sugar, saying that the claims “are not supported by the consensus of scientific evidence.” Instead, Sugar Nutrition UK cites a report published in 2013 that was funded by the World Health Organisation, which concluded that “any link to body weight was due to overconsumption of calories and was not specific to sugars.” The report also dismisses the claims that sugar is directly linked to diabetes, claiming that “the balance of available evidence does not implicate sugar in any of the so-called ‘lifestyle diseases’, such as diabetes.” Although Sugar Nutrition UK ceases to exist in 2018 (operations ended in December 2016), the entity was largely funded by sugar manufacturers.
With the argument proposed by the NHS regarding how sugar intake is directly related to obesity, let’s take a close look at the framework in place by the government, and how it tackles the excessive consumption of sugar by the British public.
A leading nutrition researcher at Oxford University, Dr Susan Jebb, investigated how policies to tackle obesity in England have evolved over the years, beginning with the origins of tackling obesity way back in 1991. Jebb writes in her report that the initial steps to cutting the obesity rates started with the acknowledgement of the issue in 1991. Professionals suggested that by creating ‘task forces’ to endorse healthy eating and physical activity the rates of obesity would decline. However, despite the suggestions by professionals, the recommendations were never adopted as public policy.
Fast forward 10 years later to 2001 and the National Audit Office (NAO), the body that assesses how well money is being spent, reported that obesity levels had trebled in England over the past 20 years and criticised the government for not doing enough. The following year, the government’s Chief Medical Inspector said that obesity was a ‘time bomb.’
It then took a further 2 years after the Chief Medical Inspector’s comments for the government to take a proactive approach to obesity, specifically focusing on children. A public service agreement was announced in 2004, with the intention of halting the year-on-year increase of obesity levels by 2010. The PSA targeted children under 11 as a strategy to tackle obesity in the population as a whole. The Department of Health compiled a public health strategy and released plans for dietary recommendations and physical activity.
However, these plans did not work out and obesity levels continued to rise and led to further scrutiny from the NAO. The scrutiny brought the obesity epidemic the UK was facing into the spotlight of the media, which in turn acted as a catalyst to take more aggressive and specific action to tackle the growing levels of obesity. The government finally started to offer solutions for the obesity epidemic.
The years to follow the blunders of 2004 saw over 30 new policies introduced and solid implementation on all fronts, with strategies such as: restrictions on food advertisement, mandatory food standards, cooperating with parents and getting the population active.
I had a chat with Michael Turnmore after we met through a weight loss support group that was suggested to me via the NHS website.
Michael 21-year-old from London who has struggled with losing weight for the majority of his life was happy to talk to me about why he decided to lose weight and how he was supported in the process.
“I was overweight for a long time and I was never happy about it, but when you’re young you can’t really do too much. In my case it was difficult to fight it, my family struggled to put food on the table as it was, so if I started to complain that the food was unhealthy, it would just be more pressure on my Mum.”
“It got to the point that I couldn’t look in the mirror, I couldn’t look at myself, everything about me was unhealthy. I had to buy new clothes every couple of months because I was just stacking on the weight. Losing all of the weight had been on my mind for years, since I was in High School actually, but one day I decided to get up and do something about it.”
“After talking to my GP, an being referred to a dietician I finally started to make some positive changes in my life. I started slowly, walking to places I would usually get a bus to, or picking up a Diet Coke instead of the original. Then after a couple of months I wanted to meet some people in the same situation as me, and I did. I can honestly say that Slimming World [a weight loss group] has motivated me to lose more and more each week. We meet every week, weigh in every week and get together! It’s a great community!”
“After talking with others in the group, those that attend this group and those that run it, we have all found common ground. The issue that I found arising time and time again was the lack of understanding that the country has as a whole over how to live a healthy lifestyle, and this confusion arises because of the lack of awareness the population has. Everybody should be taught about healthy choices in much more detail at school, until that day comes though I can see this country fighting obesity for a long time.”
Although Michael and other attendees at the weight loss groups throughout the UK are seeing some great success with regards to fighting their weight, Debbie Smalling, a Nutritionist at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge suggested the government could be doing more to fight the growing problem of obesity:
“What we really need is government policy that works. We know about all of its unsuccessful attempts to tackle obesity in the past and we know that they haven’t worked. Task forces to encourage physical exercise, dietary recommendations and diet plans have all been [ for most people] unsuccessful.”
“The real solution is to make healthier food more affordable. It’s fine to tell people what they should eat, how much they should exercise and so on, but how can they change to a healthier lifestyle when it is unaffordable. The sad truth is that it’s just cheaper to make unhealthier decisions when it comes down to nutrition.”
After speaking with Michael and Debbie it became clear that the government’s focus is on the correct issue (tackling obesity) but their methods to actually combat obesity vary in success. The creation of weight-loss support groups, the implementation clearer nutritional value on food packages and more emphasis put on the issue of tackling obesity, can help a small portion of people that can afford to change to healthier options. But if the government actually wants to see obesity rates decline dramatically, then healthier foods need to be cheaper, and schools need to spend more time discussing the issue with students.
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