FAT-HEADED IDEAS ABOUT FAT

"The UK House of Commons health select committee has produced a damning report on the growing problem of obesity, and the government's failure to deal with it.

The report says that obesity levels have risen rapidly in the past few years. Obesity is defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more - BMI being a ratio of weight to height. Obesity levels have risen fivefold in the past 25 years. And if action isn't taken, we are told, many children will die before their parents do. The media fanfare that accompanied the launch focused on the shocking death of a three-year-old girl who 'choked on her own fat'.

The report suggests that more government intervention is required to prevent a tidal wave of death and illness - junk food advertising to children should be stopped, children should be weighed annually, and a cabinet committee should be set up to coordinate action.

But amid all this hysteria, a bit of scepticism is required. This obesity 'epidemic' has taken off at a time when more and more people have tried low-fat diets and government health campaigns are becoming ubiquitous. Far from doing nothing, governments spend a lot of time telling us to eat less. And being fat isn't exactly fashionable today - quite the reverse. Yet average weight continues to rise.

Has this led to a tidal wave of ill-health? Not at all. Life expectancy continues to rise - and we are currently obsessed by a pensions crisis caused by the fact that more of us are living into our dotage.

However, for 50 years there has been a campaign to make us lose substantial amounts of weight. Bizarrely, there is almost no evidence that losing weight improves health prospects; many reports suggest that intentional weight loss makes things worse, particularly if the weight is put back on later.

As the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine wrote in 1998: 'Until we have better data about the risks of being overweight and the benefits and risks of losing weight, we should remember that the cure for obesity may be worse than the condition.'"

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IS FAT REALLY A PRIORITY FOR THE WORLD?

I would have thought that poverty and lack of food was a much bigger priority

Fat mania now international: "World Health Organization officials have launched a diplomatic blitz to try to avert the collapse of a draft global strategy on diet, physical activity and health, because of objections by Brazil, Cuba and sub-Saharan African nations. Top World Health Organization officials have launched a diplomatic blitz to try to avert the collapse of a draft global strategy on diet, physical activity and health, because of objections by Brazil, Cuba and sub-Saharan African nations".