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How Japan solved its obesity crisis – and what the UK can learn from it
According to a new report published this week, Britain’s expanding waistline is now costing nearly £100 billion a year, damaging national productivity by up to nine times more than previously thought. The report, commissioned by the Tony Blair Institute, found that two-thirds of the population are now considered overweight or obese (a rise of around 11 per cent since 1993). Within 15 years, meanwhile, the cost of obesity is set to grow by a further £10 billion.
Comparing ourselves to Japan, which, at just 4 per cent, has one of the lowest obesity rates of any country in the developed world, may seem a tall order. But Henry Dimbleby, the Government’s former food advisor and others argue that the country offers a salutary lesson in how we can come to grips with our own battle against the bulge.
Japan (alongside its East Asian neighbour South Korea) has successfully decoupled economic development from rising rates of obesity, proving that wealthy countries can keep their weight in check. But above all – and crucially with regard to the UK – that hasn’t always been the case in Japan. In fact, back in the 1960s, the country was deemed one of the least healthy in the G7, with the lowest life expectancy; its population growing fat on cheap US imports of food, which ramped up following the country’s defeat in the Second World War.
And yet, within a few decades, Japan achieved such a cultural shift in relation to food that it secured the coveted title of longest life expectancy in the world. Its successful transformation, the 53-year-old Dimbleby argues, demonstrates that obesity is an issue that can be fixed. Not by mass medication (the UK Government announced in June that it was rolling out a £40 million two-year pilot making anti-obesity drugs more widely available outside of hospital settings), but through addressing Britain’s increasingly toxic relationship with food.
Starting with children is key, and here again the UK measures up unfavourably. When English children reach school age, according to the most recent NHS figures (2021/2022), around 10 per cent are already obese and 12 per cent overweight, rising to 23.4 per cent obese and 14.3 per cent overweight by the time they reach Year 6 (age 10 to 11). In Japan, 2019 statistics show that only 4 per cent of six- to 14-year-olds register as obese.
However, such changes require government intervention, and the current administration remains unwilling. The recommendations in the National Food Strategy, which Dimbleby led at the behest of Boris Johnson’s government, have been effectively ignored. Meanwhile anti-obesity measures, such as a ban on two-for-one junk food deals and introducing a 9pm watershed for advertising unhealthy food, have been delayed until 2025.
Campaigners are also calling for the sugar tax introduced for soft drinks in 2018 to be extended to other products. But Rishi Sunak, an evangelist of full-fat high-sugar Coca Cola, appears unmoved. Instead, Victoria Atkins, the new Health Secretary, has in recent days stressed the desire to appear “not nanny-stateish” and offer people “help and advice on how to be healthier”.
The problem is, due to the lack of government intervention and the power of corporations peddling us calorific food, we remain embroiled in a system where the chips are quite literally stacked against us. As our £100 billion junk-food bill demonstrates, Britain needs all the help it can get.
Source: The Telegraph, 7 December 2023
See also: The Tony Blair Institute – The rising cost of obesity in the UK
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Millions of young people exposed to vape posts online, charity says
Tens of millions of young people on social media are being shown posts promoting nicotine pouches and vapes using discounts, giveaways and paid influencers, according to a report.
The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids claims companies are using “aggressive” tactics and that posts promoting smoking alternative nicotine and tobacco products had been viewed more than 3.4bn times across social media platforms.
The report alleges that 40% of the audience was under 25 and 16 million were under 18. The majority of views were on Instagram.
Yolonda Richardson, chief executive of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said the report “should raise the alarm bells” around inappropriate marketing.
BAT and Philip Morris targeted more than 60 countries with their marketing campaigns, the report claims. The charity said the tobacco brands were found to be “using a variety of marketing tactics to flood social media”. These included sports brand collaborations, discounts and giveaways, direct product marketing, paid influencers and paid adverts.
The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids called on governments to implement domestic and cross-border marketing bans on all tobacco and nicotine products and to enforce existing ones. It said this should include “collaborating with other governments to identify and remove illegal marketing entering their territories”.
It also called for social media companies to “adopt and proactively enforce policies that comprehensively ban tobacco and nicotine advertising on their platforms”. It said this should include marketing through paid influencer campaigns, advertisements, and accounts or pages run by tobacco companies or affiliates. Nicotine products that are approved as cessation products should be exempted from these policies, it said.
Source: The Guardian, 8 December 2023
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Three-quarters of people support plan to phase-out tobacco sales in Ireland
More than three quarters of people in Ireland support a total phasing out of tobacco sales, eventually outlawing them from shops, a new poll revealed today.
The Ipsos data on the proposed bold crackdown was presented at a conference in Dublin organised by ASH Ireland and the Irish Heart Foundation, to examine a tobacco “endgame” for Ireland as well as the regulation of e-cigarettes.
It found high level support for both a reduction in the number of locations where tobacco is sold as well as lower nicotine content to make cigarettes less addictive.
Smoking rates in Ireland remain at 18pc and have plateaued for a number of years despite hopes they would fall further.
Chris Macey, Director of Advocacy with the Irish Heart Foundation, which commissioned the research said: “If 12 people died on our roads every single day, there would be a national outcry, yet smoking causes a dozen preventable deaths a day, or 4,500 every year.
“As a nation, we have lost our way on tobacco control and have been too slow to react to the explosion in vaping.
“Our teenage smoking rate has increased for the first time in a generation and we will miss the Tobacco Free Ireland target of a 5pc smoking rate by 2025 by a margin of around half a million smokers.”
The survey of 1,012 adults last month shows 76pc of the population support a gradual outlawing of the sale and supply of tobacco, with 22pc disagreeing. Crucially, 76pc of 18-24 year-olds support the move.
Such a measure would raise the legal age of smoking every year by a year so that, eventually, no-one can legally buy tobacco.
Dr Emmet O’Brien, Chairman of ASH Ireland, said the statistics show the public is way ahead of policymakers on measures to protect young people from nicotine addiction and is ready for laws that will put an end to smoking.
“It’s time for Government to heed public sentiment and set out a timetable to make this happen,” he said.
Source: Irish Independent, 5 December 2023
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New figures show smoking costs billions more than tobacco taxes as consultation on creating a smokefree generation closes
This week, ASH published new analysis that found smoking costs England £49.2 billion each year in lost productivity and service costs, plus an additional £25.9 billion lost quality adjusted life years due to premature death from smoking. This far outweighs the money brought in from tobacco taxes. You can read the PR which includes the full breakdown here. You can also see the cost of smoking at a local authority and regional level in our updated Ready Reckoner here.
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ASH Daily News is a digest of published news on smoking-related topics. ASH is not responsible for the content of external websites. ASH does not necessarily endorse the material contained in this bulletin.
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