Monday 19 July 2021

Will childhood obesity ever be measured properly?

 
I've written for Spiked about the good part of Henry Dimbleby's report which nobody noticed...
 

Henry Dimbleby has taken some flak for his National Food Strategy report, which called for taxes on sugar and salt in the aftermath of the deepest recession in 300 years when inflation is already rising. Some people have unkindly portrayed this as one overweight, Oxford-educated Etonian telling another overweight, Oxford-educated Etonian to make the poor pay more for food. Others have noted that Leon, the fast food chain founded by Mr Dimbleby, is a major purveyor of salty, fatty and sugary products. His idea of getting GPs to prescribe fruit and vegetables has been mocked as preposterous.

Reader, I confess that I have been party to this mockery, but I come here today not to bury Mr Dimbleby but to praise one small aspect of his report. 
 
Dimbleby has noticed the weird decline in 'obesity' when children become adults. As regular readers know, this is because we measure childhood 'obesity' in a farcical way that classifies millions of slim children as fat. 
 


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