Academy Of Ideas

Podcast: listen to this debate from our Battle of Ideas archive. With the chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, having recently announced a sugary drinks tax and the Lancet publishing new figures claiming that 38 per cent of UK adults will be obese by 2025, what is the truth about obesity? This archive debate was recorded at the Battle of Ideas 2013. According to ‘Reducing Obesity and Improving Diet’, a policy document produced by the Department of Health in March 2013, most people in England are overweight or obese - 61.3% of adults and 30% of children aged between 2 and 15. The associated health problems are costing the NHS, it is claimed, more than £5 billion every year. The reasons given for people ‘going large’ are not always clear, and numerous reasons have been suggested: that the modern Western diet is too high in carbohydrates / fat / sugar [delete as appropriate], that we no longer sit down together for a home-cooked family meal, but graze all day or eat ready-meals in fr