OBESITY EPIDEMIC IN BRITAIN

Obesity is considered to be an epidemic in the Eastern world. Official figures released some months ago in Great Britain showed that, a record 20.2 per cent of youngsters were obese by the time they left primary school and the gap between rich and poor children who were overweight was widening. Undoubtedly, Britain is among the heaviest of wealthy countries and this comes, of course, at the expense of the public health status.

But obesity is not only a public health threat that leads to a string of serious illnesses, but also harms the national Economy: the cost to the NHS of treating obesity means that every person in the UK pays an extra £409 in taxes a year, and the economic output loss is the equivalent to 944.000 missing full-time workers.

For this reason, Government’s officials have taken action in order to tackle obesity by implementing anti-obesity policies, which aims to both halt the rise in obesity for future generations and benefit economies.

What was supposed to generate agreement among the general public, has caused uproar in a large number of the population, the reason being due to a controversial measure consisting of a ban on eating and drinking on public transport, especially on the trains.

On the one hand, those who have to spend an entire day travelling on the train are completely against this for obvious reasons. However, many people argue that this is not the real problem, as the bulk of snacking is done by children in the back seat of family cars and not on public transport.

Personally speaking, I think that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and those who need to be controlled are not the people who travel, but the products and the marketing.

All in all, the Government has recognized the magnitude of the obesity problem in British society, and this is why they have taken stern actions to fight against it. In my opinion however, more radical measures are needed.