Oi! Fatties! You're next!

From the BBC:

Prof Stephenson told the BBC a campaign to persuade people to eat healthy food might work in the same way as the current anti-smoking drive. There have been heavy restrictions on advertising smoking in the UK, on TV and at sports events, and a consultation is being launched on whether cigarettes should be sold in plain packaging.

"It's much more likely, as in smoking, that the solution will lie in changing the environments, changing the way people are exposed to marketing, advertising and pressures to buy these kinds of foods," he said, "Another aspect of that is the taxation of cigarettes to deter people from buying them - that seems something we should look at in relation to food," he said.

However, Prof Stephenson said he did not think society could simply exercise its way out of the problem of obesity. "My own personal experience is you have to exercise a huge amount to lose weight, I would have to run on a treadmill at maximum speed for an hour to counter-effect the calories from one or two Mars bars. Most people in modern life just don't have the time in our lives to spend several hours a day exercising."

The first bit seems clear enough: they'll sail merrily on meddling in people's lives, and if their measures fail - as they will - they'll just step up the meddling. I can't wait to see the introduction of the eating ban, when people have to take their food out of the restaurant and eat it standing on the pavement, so that healthy diners aren't the victims of passive obesity. And then the pol's will act all surprised when restaurants start going out of business.

The bit about Mars Bars seems a bit off-piste. One Mars Bar has 281 calories. A normal male adult doing a desk job and next-to-no exercise (i.e. me) needs 2,000 calories a day. I bet I could eat two Mars Bars a day without getting fat, even if I stick to my strict little-or-no exercise regimen.