Government’s obesity strategy triggers anti-smoking campaigners

Further evidence that anti-smoking campaigners may be slightly troubled by the new government.

Following this post (Are Truss and Coffey making tobacco control twitchy?) I couldn’t help notice that Hazel Cheeseman, now deputy chief executive of ASH, has retweeted or commented upon several tweets that relate to reports that the Government may be about to revisit its obesity strategy and even scrap the sugar tax which is almost universally supported by public health campaigners and other state interventionists.

On September 13 Cheeseman retweeted a tweet by Caroline Cerny, policy director for BiteBack 2030, a ‘youth-led movement for change’ in the field of food and health.

Cerny had tweeted a link to the revelation (in the Guardian) that ‘Liz Truss could scrap anti-obesity strategy in drive to cut red tape’.

Added to this she wrote:

A Prime Minister voted into office by just 81k people cancels policies supported by over 70% of the population and with potential to improve the health of millions. Bad times.

Cheeseman, deputy CEO of ASH, not only retweeted this comment, she then retweeted a tweet by Martin Marshall, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners.

Responding to an article in The Times by Dr Rachel Clarke (Scrap sugar tax and I’ll watch more patients die), Marshall had commented:

Well said Rachel Clarke

That got Cheeseman’s seal of approval too.

On Tuesday meanwhile anti-smoking campaigners Fresh North East retweeted the following comment by former Conservative leader William Hague who raged:

Rumoured scrapping of anti-obesity polices would be a serious error, leading to poorer health, more dependency, and ultimately higher taxes and a bigger state. See my Times column in May.

The column, published on May 16, was headlined ‘Obesity U-turn is weak, shallow and immoral’.

Strong stuff. And there, commenting on Hague’s tweet, was our old friend Hazel Cheeseman. According to Hazel:

If we change our environment we change our behaviour. So much ill health caused by behaviours driven by our environment. Want to secure healthier, happier nation? Then the answer is clear.

As it happens I rather agree with her on this, as I wrote here:

In my view, instead of insulting people’s intelligence and curtailing their freedoms with further restrictions on the sale of tobacco and where you can light up, governments should focus less on 'helping' people stop smoking and concentrate instead on creating the conditions for them to make 'healthier' choices for themselves because it's clear that while many people smoke for pleasure, many also smoke to relieve the stress that may be caused by their circumstances or their environment.

In other words, instead of punishing adults who smoke with punitive taxation and other measures designed to force them to quit, often against their will, government should focus on the underlying reasons why a greater proportion of people from lower socio-economic backgrounds are smokers.

Full post: Tobacco control - levelling up or dumbing down?.

Hazel’s comment about changing our environment suggests some common ground. Sadly I suspect that’s where we part company because ASH’s idea of changing our environment includes more restrictions - extending smoking bans to outdoor areas, raising the age of sale of tobacco, banning smoking in social housing etc etc.

But back to William Hague who I remember giving Tony Blair a good run for his money at PMQs (if not the 2001 general election when the Conservatives were trounced for a second time by New Labour), making me laugh with his jokes and witticisms.

Sadly, as he has got older, Hague has become one of the most boring and paternalistic men in politics. Nevertheless his article for The Times did include this interesting definition of ‘freedom’:

Freedom is, most crucially, being free from oppression, violence or discrimination. But it is also the freedom of a child to skip and somersault; of an adult to enjoy running down a country lane or in a city park; of an old person to keep their quality of life until their final days. Freedom is being well enough to work in your chosen career, to be strong enough to protect and care for your loved ones, to be fit enough to take part in sports and games. Freedom is climbing a mountain without physical distress and looking down from the top with exhilaration and wonder. These are the freedoms being denied to vast numbers of people who are the victims, not the free agents, in a system that wants to fill them up with salt, sugar and saturated fat.

Victims, not free agents. Is that really how politicians like Hague view me and millions of other people?

I’m overweight - morbidly obese according to current standards - and the days when I could climb a mountain or even a modest hill without physical distress are long gone.

As for running down a country lane, forget it. I can’t even run for a bus these days which is why I drive everywhere and park as close as I can to my destination.

But as an adult it has always been my choice what I eat. No-one has ever forced me to eat all the ‘unhealthy’ things I enjoy (which are generally not unhealthy if consumed in moderation).

When I was younger I may not have been fully appraised of what was healthy and what, eaten to excess, was not but I could guess because it’s not rocket science that fruit and vegetables, for example, are generally better for you than cake and doughnuts.

But I like cake and doughnuts and since I left home to go to university at 17 what I eat has been my business and no-one else’s and to suggest that millions of people like me are victims, not free agents, takes the biscuit.

Whether the fate of the Government’s obesity strategy (which has yet to be announced) has any bearing on its tobacco control strategy remains to be seen.

I’m dubious, personally, that even a Liz Truss government will publicly abandon Theresa May’s ‘smoke free’ ambition but I’m hopeful the new Secretary of State for Health Theresa Coffey will put education and the promotion of reduced risk products ahead of further anti-smoking measures designed to punish smokers for their habit.

Meanwhile it’s amusing to watch anti-smoking campaigners take such an interest in the size of the nation’s collective waist.

It just goes to show that their interests go way beyond tobacco and nicotine but, then again, so do mine.

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

I think the anti smoker lobbyists and activists are worried that the war on the overweight will end because that is where they hope to make their living and get their funding once they achieve the criminalisation of smokers.

We all know the public health lifestyle scam is a slippery slope. They always need something next to feed on.

As for Hague his definition of freedom was spot on but only if you enjoy the life he thinks you should. After all, if one does not like climbing mountains then where is the pleasure in getting to the top and looking down? And if you really want that pleasure without the climb then places such as Snowden have trains that take you to the top.

Children are much less likely to run and play these days because how much of the green spaces have been lost to housing estates and business parks? How many parents think their children are safe to play outdoors these days, especially in cities? Despite this though, many of them, around here at least, in the countryside, still manage to have fun by getting out on bikes, hanging around parks, or going for walks.

Hague talks as if it's the 1950s and all that has changed since then is the availability of McDonalds and ready meals.

I remember years ago how my son came home crying when he was 8 years old because his teacher told him I was going to die soon due to having smoked most of my life. I proved to him and the awful teacher that despite my decades of smoking I was still fit, could still run and proved it by coming fourth in the parents race that year. (I could have done better but I maintain another parent cheated 😂) When my son told the teacher about this, she scoffed and told my son that had I never smoked, I could probably have been a world class athlete. It never occurred to her for one minute that I never wanted to be.

I live my life how I choose. I am not free if I live my life how someone else thinks I should.

I don't think ASH needs to worry, as smokers will still get a hard time. Someone has to pay for other tax cuts. Smokers are cash cows, easy targets, and the only group of people who face discrimination based on their identity. If that tax goes to more worthy needs in the NHS like direct patient care rather than paying nags like Hazel Cheeseman and her chums, then I wouldn't have such a problem with funding the NHS more than any other consumer of so called risky products.

[Rose2]

"But I like cake and doughnuts and since I left home to go to university at 17 what I eat has been my business and no-one else’s and to suggest that millions of people like me are victims, not free agents, takes the biscuit."

Simon, you became a victim in 2009, just as we did in 1994 and by the same person using the same method as this article explains.

How the Food Makers Captured Our Brains
2009
“As head of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. David A. Kessler served two presidents and battled Congress and Big Tobacco. But the Harvard-educated pediatrician discovered he was helpless against the forces of a chocolate chip cookie.

In an experiment of one, Dr. Kessler tested his willpower by buying two gooey chocolate chip cookies that he didn’t plan to eat. At home, he found himself staring at the cookies, and even distracted by memories of the chocolate chunks and doughy peaks as he left the room. He left the house, and the cookies remained uneaten. Feeling triumphant, he stopped for coffee, saw cookies on the counter and gobbled one down.”

“Why does that chocolate chip cookie have such power over me?” Dr. Kessler asked in an interview. “Is it the cookie, the representation of the cookie in my brain? I spent seven years trying to figure out the answer.”

During his time at the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Kessler maintained a high profile, streamlining the agency, pushing for faster approval of drugs and overseeing the creation of the standardized nutrition label on food packaging.

But Dr. Kessler is perhaps best known for his efforts to investigate and regulate the tobacco industry, and his accusation that cigarette makers intentionally manipulated nicotine content to make their products more addictive.
In “The End of Overeating,” Dr. Kessler finds some similarities in the food industry, which has combined and created foods in a way that taps into our brain circuitry and stimulates our desire for more.”

“Dr. Kessler isn’t convinced that food makers fully understand the neuroscience of the forces they have unleashed, but food companies certainly understand human behavior, taste preferences and desire.”

“Food companies “design food for irresistibility,” Dr. Kessler noted. “It’s been part of their business plans.”

“Nobody has ever explained to people how their brains have been captured.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/health/23well.html

Small world, isn't it?