Limit the number of takeaway restaurants. Why dont planners already do this? Some highstreets are all burgers, kebabs, chips, chicken, indian and chinese food outlets. That is not to mention the filth and poor social behaviour, such as public vomitting and food waste, they create.

PSFT, London, UK

The problem is as yet unwritten, are we covertly being adicted to trash food as children.The goverment is to blame food education is not good for business, just as education on personnel finance.

michael joseph heavey, cahersiveen>adams towns, madness

I agree that poverty plays a part in the obesity problem we face today. Children's parents are working and it is not safe to let children play in the streets so many do end up sitting at home watching tv etc. However many of us work very long hours (12+/day) and still manage to cook up something healthy, appetising, fast (in 30 minutes or less from scratch) and cost effective. Not making home cooked meals for your children at least 4x per week is pure laziness. Sweets and fast food were available to me 20 years ago as a child but my mother enforced discipline - I was not allowed to have cokes except on special occations, my husband was not allowed sugary cereals for breakfast. Maybe your blaming obesity on poverty is a result of broken family values and structures, essentially parents not caring and letting there children do what they want becasue it is easier. While I understand obesity does not have one cause I am tired of people balming poverty.

S P, London,

There was a book published ages ago called Fat is a Feminist Issue, it was all about the dysfunctional relationship women have with food and their bodies, entwined with notions of beauty, derisability and self-esteem. Then the `ideal' shape was slim but healthy. Now we have Keira Knightly et al paraded as ideals when they are dangerously emaciated.

I think we must stop berating people and lecturing them about what they eat - the human body is pretty good at getting by on what is available , so long as we have to work at bit to get it .

The `5 a day' mantra is about as helpful as the Cabbage soup diet - and yes I;ve done that one - gastly, we just need to spend fewer hours on our bottoms in front of screens and more hours outside working up an appetite, but I know even as I write this - that the answers are easier to say , than actually do.

Another diet looms!

Caroline, west malling, Kent

Men and Boys who need to wear bras, For goodness sake! Whatever else, I think overweight/obese people lack self respect and self discipline. Feeding your kids fattening foods and allowing them to eat them outside the home is child abuse. Fat doesnt come from nowhere.
I am 72 and can wear the same trousers I wore when I was half the age. I take pride in my physical appearance, weight train and swim. I can bench press 80 kilos (about 170 pounds).
All these diets are nonsense, Just eat less and sensibly. Have treats sometimes but don't live on them. Stop drinking sweet and fizzy drinks, which shouldn't be hard as they taste foul anyway. Cut down on alcohol and exercise as much as you can in whatever way you enjoy.
What happened to sport in school, I had to do it, no choice and hated it. Is the country full of out of work PE teachers?
I would never eat Muckdonalds and did not let my kids.

Billcarr, turku, finland

There's a lot to be said for simply refusing to hate yourself because someone else hates you.



http://fatchic.dianarajchel.com

Di, Minneapolis, USA

To suggest that the desire to lose weight must come from the individual is naive. It's as helpful as asking people to refrain from sex to prevent STDs. We need a combination approach to this problem: For starters, our attitude to food is all wrong - Lorenzo in Italy understands this. It's not pizza that's wicked, it's factory made, long life, transfat-laden, 3 minutes to the table, pizza. Similarly extra school sport is irrelevant when children >3 are pushed around in buggies and parents get in their car to drive <1 mile. Given the increasing cost of obesity, someone has to be brave and consider new funding mechanisms for the NHS. It's time to look at insurance for non emergency healthcare. The insurance industry is generally less worried about hurting feelings: smoker / obese / drinker? Pay more. And finally, hard as this is for all the people desperately struggling with their weight, we need to remove the mixed messages about obesity. Eat less, exercise more, no excuses.

Claire, Herts, UK

In repsonse to Lorenzo, who asked why pizza is such a bad thing. Having been in Italy, you notice how pizza is freshly made, with fresh toppings. The rest of the western world would be a bit slimmer if they were all made that way. But come the food chains, who add sugar etc. to the dough, lots and lots of processed cheeses, rather than fresh cheese, tomato sauce with preservatives galore, and top it off with plenty of meat on it. It may taste good (actually, fresh italian pizza made in italy tastes so much better than any other pizza i've eaten), but it just piles on the calories. Then of course you have your Pizza buffet lunches, where you can eat as much calorie loading pizza for a small cost...fill your belly up, jump back in the car and do whatever else....on thanks not for me, but for many, it is a treat and a highlight of their day. It will only add on a couple of thousand of calories for them, and i hardly expect everyone to burn it all off...simply shocking.

Harm, Boston,

Surely the rise in childhood obesity can be linked to the other "hot topic" of working mothers and the government's obsession with encouraging both parents to be fully employed. As a working single mother I know, only too well, of the temptation to shove a pizza in the oven to feed a crabby, crying hungry child at half past five when I finally walk through the door after fulfilling my obligation to work to support my daughter. Fortunately I am lucky that this proves to be the exception rather than the rule - however my situation is one of necessity as oppose to choice and I move heaven and earth to ensure that we eat healthy, non fast foods as often as possible. Perhaps the government should consider the net effect of encouraging mothers to work in a child's early years' on the standard of diet that is then prevalent in working households.

Ellemmjay, South Cave, East Yorkshire,

what a shame you haven't yet heard of the weight reducing plaster. A safe, natural way to reduce body fat (not muscle) as part of a nutritionally balanced lifestyle

Keith Robotham, Dalsland, Sweden

I believe that the "writer we all know and love" is no other than AA Gill. Reading between the lines and over and under the lines one detects his two greatest fears : Cacomorphobia and Gerontophobia. Mystery solved!

Brooks, Munich, Germany

I'm not sure to understand what pizza has got to do with obesity. Take a little tour in Italy and try to meet fat children. To increase your chances go near a school when at 12:45 am they leave. You'll be very surprised to notice that although they are greedy pizza eater it’s quite hard to come across obese students.

Lorenzo, Firenze, Italy

In the fifties women were acceptable with a "shape", I was a size 12 (not that anyone bothered to measure much then) and I am now a 14/16 mainly due to middle aged spread. The media places too much on pictures of massive bellies when they talk about overweight, and people who are a bit overweight like myself don't identify with it. People waste their money joining gyms when they should get rid of their cars.
BUT, anyone who lets their child stuff their face and turn into a balloon, should be very very ashamed, food habits start from a very early age as does successful discipline. There are a lot of people who are greedy in many ways.

redandover60, Hayes, Middlesex, England

I have a super fast metabolism and so burn calories like a gas guzzling hummer without adding an ounce. I have to eat a ton of (protein rich) food just to stay at a healthy and athletic 14 stone. Life is hard.

Nathan , Surrey,

The rise in obesity coincides with the rise of the food industry. Give us 1950s shops and we'll have 1950s figures. It's not just the car - I don't have one - it's the hidden sugars. Low fat is a complete con but no-one officially will stand up against it. Carbohydrate increases appetite while protein satisfies it, but if eaten together, the carbo will win, ie you'll want more. Somersize!

Diane, Sutton,

Obesity is a worse problem than climate change? Given that the latter is down towards the bottom of the list of things that matter, where does this really put obesity?

Mark, Bedford, UK

Eat like a pig-look like a pig. It really is as simple as that.
I'm sick of people making stupid and ignorent excuses for why they look like cartoon characters. Let the slobs just die from their heart attacks and blood disorders. They are not going to change so why waste space on them?

Kenneth Wheatley, St Pée sur Nivelle, France

AspieMum, I am sorry that you suffer with the illness that you do but do please take a moment and realise that (i presume) the author was not stating a lack of belief in illnesses that cause obesity, rather that it has become common place for people to look for 'excuses' as to why they are overweight, which OFTEN (not always - calm yourself) isn't the case...

aeyynlg, sheffield,

Matthew Parris? No, it has to be Clarkson!

Tom Read, Colchester, uk

Am I the only one who doesn't know who the writer (who hates fat people) is? Clues, anyone?

marcia , Seattle, WA

Spot on. More calories in than going out = weight gain. No brainer.

Apart from encouraging more exercise and advertising for good food, I'm not sure this is the Government's problem at all. People (and opposition MPs and shadow ministers) are too quick to lay the blame for everything on "the government".

Has Tony Blair (and now GOrdfon Brown) been going around force-feeding kids with fatty food? I don't think so.

It's about time people took responsibility for their own lives. If they want to eat fatty foods - fine. Just don't tell me to do the same and don't go running to (our) national health service when you get ill as a result.

I don't think the NHS should treat anyone who has an "avoidable" illness (difficult to define I know), eg from smoking or eating badly over a long period. That wasn't why the NHS was set up.

Stephen Edwards, Wokingham, UK

1 kg of body fat is equal to about 7700 calories -- 3 days starvation for a woman. 40kg fat is 120 days of life, just about enough to ensure survival over a harsh ice age winter in which the food stores are lost. If the woman is nursing a babe, her 40kg of body fat might only buy 80 days of survival for her and the child.

This should tell you something -- bodies plan ahead for all eventualities without our 'permission' -- much of the 'obesity' is just a normal, natural mechanism to ensure mankind's survival -- something that may people cannot control to their fashionable advantage which is why most dieters fail.

To berate and badger people for their body shape is just as nasty as hating someone for their skin colour -- you turn the majority of people in this country into instant pariahs who are the only group of people left in this country that are legal (and popular) targets to insult, berate, discriminate and hate.

Imli, London,

M. Knight in the USA: you have pointed out the connection between poverty and cheap, unhealthy food. In South Africa we have also had this argument about people on the breadline not being able to afford a healthy diet. The interesting point is that the breadline in question happens to be white bread. Why not brown bread or wholewheat, which is cheaper? It's because white bread is classier. Potatoes are surely cheaper and more satisfying than potato chips. It is urbanisation and aspirations to a western lifestyle that have contributed to our obesity problem here. Stomach cancer, heart attacks and such ills are virtually unknown in black populations subsisting on a "poor" diet of maize meal, dried beans, fish, vegetables and so on. But now eating such food is seen as demeaning. What an irony, when skinny rich types are spending a fortune on high-fibre foodstuffs!

Hippobabe, Johannesburg, South Africa

Sir,
This is a major problem; in fact its the elephant in the room

Dave Hill, Lytham St Annes, Lancs

Matthew Parris?

charlotte, London, UK

Problem? The only problem is perennial interference by "Those Who Know What's Best For Us". Look at it in the context of over-population. As a biologist, my mantra is "natural selection". Weed out defective genes; let the unfit die.

Terry Dell, Weybridge, UK

I'm a Big Girl. I've always been a Big Girl and that's despite living in a kind of Dikensian poverty as a child - food was once a day and there were no sweets, fizzy pop or snacks. Three years ago I was diagnosed with Lymphoedema which went a very long way to explaining how I got bigger and bigger year on year. Thanks to the shortsightedeness of many health professionals over the years I am now quite deformed by my condition and its effects are irreversible, although they can now be maintained. Not such good news when I'm talking of decades of fibrosis. I have faced pretty much every kind of prejudice from every kind of person ranging from hushed comments to being spat on and punched by a group of a dozen or so young men. I wasn't a child then - I was 36! There's no way I would CHOOSE to be this Big but, on finding myself Miss Humungous 2007, I'm trying to make the best of a pretty poor lot. Keep your sneers to yourselves as, we've been told, where I am now so shall you be...

AspieMum, North Yorkshire,

"These children are likely to die before their parents". I suppose what the National Obesity Forum is trying to say is they are likely to die younger than their parents.

Frank Upton, Solihull,

To M.Pitt, Pittsburgh - thankyou for making the point that people will always look for excuses to justify being overweight. I'm confident - no - scrub that, I KNOW that salad materials, fresh fruit etc cost no more than bags of sweets and crisps (chips) - but of course that wouldn't be a viable alternative now would it..

My grandparents grew up during and after the second world war. There was very little money, there was food rationing. They had no option of buying sweets and other rubbish, but nevertheless they had to eat whatever they could, regardless of whether it was particularly healthy, to survive. And there was very little obesity. So your argument really has no grounding.

I'm a firm believer in the Billy Connolly theory to weight loss. Very simple - eat less, move more.

Greg, Reading, UK

There is no such thing as 'bad' food, unless it is rotting. The problems arise from excesses. Eating too much of anything will give weight increase, even if it is fillet steak. We need to stop demonising certain foods and educate people to appreciate variety in a balanced diet.

P Robbins, Cornwall,

Some readers aren't going to like this, but what the hell. Many obese people are living in poverty. The price of the catch of the day is beyond them. Noodles, ground meat and sweets and high fat (but cheap) fast food help to fill their bellies.

Their kids and many others are stuck to the telly (in Brit speak) and video games because playing outside puts one in contact with gangs and other unattractive street types. Many Mums & Dads living in poverty prefer to keep their kids inside to protect them.

Lastly, if life doesn't offer much in the way of satisfaction -career, education, advancement - sex and fatty foods fill the void.

I don't have answers - I'm just sick to death of the skinny (sometimes emaciated )penthouse set pointing their bony fingers crying SLOTH, GLUTTON!!!

Life ain't always what it seems if you can only see it between the covers of a chic magazine.

M. Knight, Pittsburgh, USA

The media are a pain in most things and to many plagued people. The women are making it worse as it shows our losing ways in the main statistics which can be leveled at our women and the government economics and accounting.
Slimming is not easy and the hidden persuaders in food with the bad calorie count and several drug omissions from the food for stability of weight.
many compounds are creating immunity and the medics are very sloth in taking action as it can kill if the vitamins and food are not right. Strokes and heart attacks are likely.
Many instances of sport injury are amplified in watchers of TV and a lot of the fascist money making is going on when really the body and faith should be doing the work.
No many medics have been right and several have been nasty especially the Asians and 3rd world hypnotic diagnoses before the illness occurs. Drugs and antiquated phlogiston beliefs are to blame and we should be more for the atoms and molecules and rest with better food quality

Dr MI Barton MA. MBA.PhD, Oxon., uk

Its hard to find the actual figures, but I very much doubt that "these children are likely to die before there parents". If the author meant "These children are likely to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents" that seems a bit more likely.The average age of a mother when a child is born in the UK is 28-29 years. For the first statement to be true then the life expectancy of the children would need to be reduced by more than this amount, AND their parents would need to live out their full lifeexpected lifespan i.e. not be obese/smokers/poor and suffer reduced lifespan themselves. This seems unlikely. This is not to minimise the problem, or suggest that people need to work to solve the problem. Personally, I believe acting to change town planning to encourage exercise rather than banning turkey twizzlers is likely to be effective, but I'm certain that its a complex problem that will require a lot of different approaches.

David Parry, Auckland, New Zealand

Of course we have primary responsibility for our own weight, but that doesn't mean that no-one else has any responsibility at all. The food industry has made it easier to eat badly than ever before, and harder to eat well than ever before, by creating appealing foods full of harmful ingredients. In particular it is far harder to feed a child well than it was 50 years ago. The parents of those days weren't more virtuous, they just didn't have to work so hard to avoid bad foods because there weren't so many of them.

Given that in reality people outside the London elite are not all going to start eating only food from farmers' markets, the content of processed foods to be fixed. Ideally this should be done voluntarily by the food manufacturers, and their dominant customers the supermarkets, but if they won't do it, the government should make them. While is is condemnable that the writer's upper middle class family has helped itself, his example isn't going to reach working class kids.

Oliver Chettle, Bedford,

Jamie Oliver's success was that he forced the schools to provide better food, and the government to pay for it, instead of dishing up that disgusting slop they were getting away with.

At no point did he say he would also get every kid to eat it. You can't expect all the kids to change their outlook on their diet and love fresh vegetables over chips and turkey, bleedin', twizzlers. The schools' behaviour can be regulated, unlike the children. That particular problem is for the individual parents to solve.

The same could be done for the rubbish that takes up at least half of the shelves and freezers in British supermarkets. They are out to make a profit, not keep their customers healthy. Food often contains additives here that are banned in other countries (including E124, E211, E104, E110, E102, E122, E129). Often these are used to disguise poor-quality and fatty foods. So people buy more and EAT more. Simple stuff really.

Justin, Nr Lincoln, UK