SOLVING the UK’s obesity problem would take “hundreds of years”, a public health chief has said.
Worcestershire director of public health Prof Lisa McNally said the country’s entire attitude to obesity and the food available to people need to change.
At a health overview and scrutiny committee meeting on Thursday (September 3), she said: “I hate the word ‘obesity’ because it’s stigmatised and there are a lot of people who aren’t obese and are very unhealthy, but it would take hundreds of years to treat our way out of the obesity issue that we have in this country.
HEALTH CHIEF: Prof Lisa McNally said she hates the way obesity is spoken about (Image: Submitted)
“Unless we change the environment, unless we change the food that’s available, unless we change the density of fast food joints, especially within a close distance to schools, unless we can walk into a supermarket and not be confronted in every single place by high fat, sugar and salt foods we’re not going to solve this issue.
“What I think we prefer to do in this country is see obesity and weight management as a blame game on the individual while certain commercial companies make a fortune out of high fat, sugar and salt food.”
Prof McNally also said she wants to see “proper regulation” regarding the food served to children in schools.
“I hate the way we talk about obesity in this country, especially childhood obesity,” she said.
“Our childhood obesity rates in Worcestershire are not particularly out of the ordinary. We wish they were lower but they’re not significantly higher than anywhere else,” she told the committee.
“But I know for a fact I could spend the whole public health grant on childhood obesity programmes, educating kids over and over again [but] the research shows education doesn’t work. Policy works, changing the environment.”
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Public health consultant Elizabeth Griffiths said Worcestershire County Council helps people access a number of programmes including Fit for Life, 12 weeks of free Slimming World, and Healthy Worcestershire including a 12-week nutrition programme.
She added that a men’s Fit for Life programme was being launched in September.
People respond better to weight management interventions when they can choose which one they take part in, she said.
Councillor Richard Udall: “It concerns me the language I’ve seen used around childhood obesity when a lot of the time it’s a mental health issue.
“I’ve seen teenage obesity turned into anorexia,” he said, adding that “emotional blackmail” is used against young people with obesity.
Cllr Fran Oborski said the food served to patients in Worcestershire Royal Hospital is often unhealthy yet out the front is “probably the best fruit and veg stand in the county”.
