David Cameron convened another COBRA meeting last week. Normally associated with terrorist threats and natural disasters, this time it was for a crisis in health. We’ve known about it for years, we’ve seen the catastrophic effects on individuals, we have had a plethora of advice on prevention and we have some frightening numbers of the cost to the economy. Were they discussing the greatest threat to the nation’s health and possibly economic security, ie obesity? No. Obesity, which has been blubbering for attention from politicians for a couple of decades, was elbowed aside by the far more fashionable ebola.
Obesity is not a future theoretical threat, it is a present catastrophe. In the past 20 years, the proportion of adults that are obese has risen from 13.2 per cent to 24.4 per cent among men and from 16.4 per cent to 25.1 per cent among women. Including being overweight, the numbers are far worse: 57.6 per cent to 66.6 per cent among men and from 48.6 per cent to 57.2 per cent among women. Most people have heard of the repercussions of being obese: diabetes, heart disease, joint problems, though less known tends to be the rising association with cancer. In 2007 the cost to the UK economy of overweight and obesity was estimated at £15.8bn per year, including £4.2bn in costs to the NHS. 2007 was also the year that the Labour government brought out its seminal Foresight Report on “Tackling Obesities” which set out to answer the question “How can we deliver a sustainable response to obesity over the next 40 years?” The project assembled evidence and expertise from diverse academic disciplines as well as interested organisations within and beyond government.
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