The cost of obesity is more nanny state interventionism
Thursday, November 20, 2014 at 20:06 Iain Dale never struck me as a gullible chap.
And yet, for an hour this evening, I listened as he repeatedly told his listeners on LBC that obesity is costing the UK £47 billion a year.
The figure, we were told, is almost as much as the cost of smoking (£57 billion).
This alarmist information was published today in a study that claimed "Obesity is a greater burden on the UK's economy than armed violence, war and terrorism".
To be fair to Iain, who is reasonably libertarian on lifestyle issues, he didn't hide his belief in personal responsibility, nor did he agree with callers who wanted the government to "do something" if only "for the children".
I would however like to have heard someone challenging the figures because estimates and calculations such as this have a habit of gaining currency through repetition.
A decade ago, for example, were were told that treating smoking-related diseases costs the NHS £1.5 billion a year. There was no evidence to support the claim. It was an estimate.
This guess later rose to £2.5 billion and it's been rising ever since.
In response to the hard fact (based on Treasury figures) that tobacco raises £10-12 billion for the government every year, anti-smoking campaigners had to come up with a new estimate for the cost of smoking.
According to ASH:
The total cost to society (in England) is approximately £12.9 billion a year. This includes the cost to the NHS of treating diseases caused by smoking in England which is approximately £2 billion a year. Other costs include:
loss in productivity due to premature deaths (£3bn)
cost to businesses of smoking breaks (£5bn)
smoking-related sick days (£1bn)
social care costs of older smokers (£1.1bn)
costs of fires caused by smokers' materials (£391m)
See The Economics of Tobacco (ASH, 2014)
Note how the cost of treating smoking-related diseases (most of which are multifactorial) has become the more definitive "diseases caused by smoking". When did that happen?
As for those other figures, where is the hard evidence? In most cases it doesn't exist because the figures are based on estimates and calculations – just like the number of deaths said to be caused by smoking and passive smoking.
According to the McKinsey Global Institute, however, the economic cost of smoking is actually far higher – £57 billion a year in the UK alone!
What are we to make of that, and the alleged cost of obesity (£47 billion)? Do we meekly accept the figures are correct and act accordingly?
One caller to Iain Dale's LBC show complained about the number of takeaway food shops that had opened in her area.
Iain rightly pointed out that shops generally open and thrive where there's a demand but the implication of the call was clear: the government should step in and close them down, or prevent them opening in the first place.
According to the McKinsey report a series of 44 interventions could bring 20 per cent of overweight or obese people in UK back to normal weight within five to 10 years. They include:
Portion control in fast food packaged goods
Investing in parental education
Introducing healthy meals in schools and workplaces.
Changing the school curriculum to include more physical exercise
Encouraging more physical activities by introducing bicycle lanes
I'd love to see what the other 39 interventions are, not to mention the cost of all those bicycle lanes. The mind boggles.
Meanwhile, talking of bicycles, can I draw your attention to this hilarious tweet by the BBC's Jeremy Vine:
The moment I got stopped by police with a speed gun, checking cyclists today https://t.co/ytygaP4kY4
— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) November 20, 2014
Unbelievably, Vine was stopped by a policeman with a hand held radar gun for cycling at more than six miles per hour in a cycle lane in Hyde Park.
The lesson seems to be: take up cycling to keep fit and lose weight and risk falling foul of the law for peddling too quickly.
It's similar to vaping: quit smoking for a healthier alternative and risk a fine for vaping in a public place.
Like the McKinsey report, you couldn't make it up.
Update: Thankfully not everyone is as gullible as the mainstream media: Obese people cost us £47bn? The Adam Smith Institute rips that to shreds in one comment (London Loves Business).
Chris Snowdon has also commented here.
Reader Comments (7)
Like wot Chris said, it was inevitable that the MSM would pick up on the intended propaganda and publish it. The intended propaganda was:
1. That there are ONLY costs and no benefits.
2. That it is ignored that many of the 'costs' are not borne by Taxpayers, but are costs borne by the individual who is plump or by an employer.
3. That early death is NOT a saving in pension costs.
These tricks have been evident in tobacco control for years and years.
Is it possible that A SINGLE JOURNALIST will observe the lack of equality of the equation? The equation that is being promoted is A (costs of obesity) = B (costs to NHS).
The real equations should be:
A (cost of obesity) MINUS C (savings in pension payments and NHS costs) = B (net costs to taxpayers).
If the dire claims of the Health Zealots are to be believed, then, if they get their wish, A will be reduced, but C will be increased. At best, therefore, there would be equilibrium, and therefore all the costs involved in 'obesity control' would be additional to A in that the any actual monetary cost of obesity (hospitals, wages etc) would be increased by the costs of 'obesity control' indirectly. That is the crux. Obesity Control is supposed to reduce NHS costs, but, in reality, it increases those costs.
ALL (not most) 'smoking-related diseases' are multifactorial.
It wasn't long ago that smoking cost 13 billion, including about 9 billion for smoking breaks etc. Where did this extra 34 billion come from? That's about £3,400 pound per smoker on top of the original health/skiving estimate.
Please can I remind folk that are interested in regaining their freedom of choice via smoking rooms etc that Alan Auld is fighting your corner for you - or will be soon as legal opinion has stated that he does have a case. (and we are not talking some back street quck lawyer either). The full tale is over here http://www.justice4smokers.co.uk/?page_id=305
This will be the smokers (and anti prohibitionists) opportunity to gain proper representation in a court of law where truth will prevail (so that's England & Scotland out of the equation!). Come join the party.
All "cost to society" studies are complete crap. Humans are the
only animals on the planet that use money. Any money I spend, or
is spent on my behalf, must, by definition, go to someone else. I
cannot purchase a product or service from nobody. If I spend
money someone else must receive said money; as both the buyer and seller are parts of society, "society" has neither lost nor gained
anything. The only possible exception to this would be if people
received money while providing neither product nor service......like
lobby groups and consultancy firms
ALL (not most) 'smoking-related diseases' are multifactorial.
To which I would add the logical progression from that factual statement; that there are no "diseases caused by smoking". So in making that statement they are not just being disingenuous, they are telling outright lies. Like putting "Smoking Kills" on cigarette packs. I've been smoking for more than 50 years, and I am still very much alive. Ergo, the statement "smoking kills" is patently untrue. Oh, I will die, that's a given; but so will all the non-smokers. So "Smoking Kills" is no more than an hyperbolic falsehood designed to scare the living daylights out of the natives.
The big question is why McKinsey produced a laughably inept report and who is behind their move into the socially divisive junk economics market. What is the motive and who is paying?