The politics of weight loss...

I popped into the supermarket to get a few bits and pieces: milk and fruit mostly. As usual there weren't enough tills open and so what should have been a quick in and out involved a long queue and lots of wasted time. I really don't understand why the shops can't work out the right number of staff they need on specific days and times based on analysis of shopping patterns! It's not, to use a phrase I hate, "rocket science".

Anyhow, whilst wandering up and down the aisles it struck me how the food that's supposedly bad for you tends to be cheap whilst the healthy food is expensive. Surely this is absurd?

Now I realize this is because of the "free market" and supply and demand but surely any government with any interest in the health of the nation would do something about this ridiculous situation?

And this isn't an attack on just the current government, it has been the case with governments of all colours over the past few decades  - do the easy and popular and let's not give a shit about principles or tackling genuine problems. In the meantime the nation is slowly killing itself in an ocean of fat, salt and sugar.

So what should they do? It's so, so simple. All foodstuffs need to be classified properly by how good they are for you and how much harm they will do to you if you eat them. This shouldn't be tricky - a tomato would, I would suggest, be in a good and healthy category 1 while a burger from one of the popular fast food chains would be in category 5. And foods of other levels would fall somewhere in between. All the category 1 foods (and drinks) would have a zero rated Healthy Eating Sales tax added while the higher levels would get higher and higher. 

it's often the only way to stop people doing harm to themselves and to others - hit them in their pocket. Tax them so heavily on crap food and use that money to subsidize healthier options that there is no argument for not changing habits.

Sure, I hear a cry of "but it's not just the content but the quantity that's an issue" - this is true but it would help enormously if the fat-laiden, salt soaked and sugar heavy ready meal cost £20 and the ingredients to be able to make it yourself only cost £2! Or, if people are too lazy or stupid to try to cook for themselves, a healthy ready meal is £5.

And this wouldn't just benefit the individual it would benefit the whole of society by reducing the tax burden of the NHS by having a healthier and fitter population. That money could, again, be spent on more beneficial things like free swimming passes for everyone or annual check ups for all

The same should be done with alcohol - the tax should be so much higher and the monies raised used to encourage and, to some extent, force people to cut down their booze intake.

Maybe politicians are too far up their own arses to do anything, maybe they're too scared they might upset someone, maybe they just don't care as long as they get their big salary and all the perks but with each piece of tokenism they simply tinker with the problem of a society of lard arses, they're not really tackling it and not really doing anything that will genuinely change the habits of a nation who need to be pulled by the scruff of the neck into the modern world.

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