It’s recently been reported in the press that Britain should put a tax on salty and sugary food. The Daily Mail headline from 15 July 2021 was “Snack Tax to Fight Fat Crisis”. For a long time now obesity has been a cause of much NHS spend and with COVID the costs will have spiralled. The RSPH (Royal Society for Public Health) shared that obesity costs the NHS £4.2 billion a year and without urgent and radical action, this will rise to £10 billion a year by 2050.
Everyone has the opportunity to improve and protect their health and wellbeing, it’s just a case of having the motivation to make the changes and knowing what to do. If ever we needed motivation, a statistic contained within the recent 288 page report on the subject, now sat with Boris, our Prime Minister awaiting review, quoted that the cost to treat diabetes was 1.5 times that of cancer treatment costs. We really all as individuals must do everything within our gift to maintain our own health.
The pandemic has reduced the amount of special occasions: sunshine beach holidays, weddings, birthday celebrations – all events that often drive people to get their body back into shape. But please don’t use this is an excuse. Use the health is wealth and without it you are nothing angle. If you aren’t sure whether your body needs some love, care and attention, a very crude way to assess would be your BMI (body mass index). It’s literally just your height and weight measurements you need and then you can read from the chart whether you are in a category that requires action. Normal is only a relatively small range so it is quite possible that there will be a fair few of us requiring action!
To change as a community as a whole will take time, it’s essentially like moving a tanker mid Atlantic, but there’s no reason why we can’t start with ourselves. Influential figureheads are trying to help – Christiano Ronaldo made me smil when he moved bottles of Coca Cola out of sight during a press conference and replaced them with water, causing the company’s share price to drop. Not good for Coca Cola but it was the right message for all his fans. He does not get his health and fitness from drinking sugary, fizzy drinks!
The processed food companies are very clever at marketing to make their products appear healthy, and put on promotions to make them financially attractive too. Do not be fished in by the marketeer tricks. Don’t trust the fat free badges on products, you need to check the actual ingredients and sugars on the package labelling. By and large if it’s in a packet or tin it’s likely to be processed food which is a main cause of obesity. Sugars and saturated fats are absolutely the enemy…. The enemy that causes high dangerous visceral fats, the fats around our main organs that cause heart disease, type II diabetes, and strokes.
In answer to the headline question of will a sugar and salt tax beat obesity, I would say no. These foods are already recognised as damaging to our health but they are addictive and hard habits to break. If we look back at smoking, to my mind there are a number of synergies with the proposed sugar and salt tax. Smoking was a habit that began as a social luxury but has now become quite anti-social as people have understood the health damage it can cause. I don’t think labelling the cigarette packets with “cigarettes can kill” deterred many addicts though, it was more when pubs and other public places banned smoking it made it more difficult and less socially acceptable. A tax on sugar and salt would possibly gather funds to support the NHS to treat conditions arising from obesity but it would not in my opinion change habits. Sugar addiction is very real. At present there are still many social outlets that only serve processed food. There aren’t many parks for example serving non processed food! True change will only happen when only nutritious food is available in social settings. I fear this is a long way off, so can only recommend you take account of yourself, prepare your own food and eat straight from the field and straight from the animal. Those of you who read my edit each month will know I’m a big fan of the butchers, the fishmongers and the farm shop. I’d highly recommend a visit to a pick your own farm shop – even if you don’t pick your own and pick the vegetables, salad and fruit the farm have already harvested, it stills counts as super delicious and nutritious.
There is a definite link between stress and obesity. Being kind is one way to cause less stress, soothe existing and water the soul. Seek out the positives in situations and be thankful for them. There have been two recent sporting moments where I bet the individuals concerned are digging deep after criticism and hate, and doing just that.
75 years ago, on 31st August 1946 league football resumed after having been suspended during World War II, so how lucky were we to have witnessed the England lions in the Euros go all with way to the cup final, particularly as we still navigate our way out of the COVID pandemic.
Freedom of speech is a privilege not afforded in every country, here in the UK everyone has a right to an opinion, but where do we draw the line. Surely it has to be when your freedom of speech could damage another’s health and wellbeing? We saw last month both our fabulous England football team and our sensational, young, English tennis talent at Wimbledon receive criticism, and personal attack that is just not necessary, nor helpful. Love will always outweigh hate. Kindness wins over hatred. Please support one another and think if you’ve nothing nice to say is it worth saying?
Enjoy the sunshine of August most carefully, give and welcome kindness each day and if you’re not in that healthy BMI category please try and make at least one change to move yourself in the right direction. Don’t wait for the communal change to guide our health – it could be a long time coming!
Best wishes Dianne