Boris Johnson has launched a 'war on obesity', aiming to tackle rising rates of obesity through measures such as banning ‘buy one, get one free’ deals on unhealthy snacks, putting calorie counts on restaurant menus and restricting junk-food advertising on TV before 9pm. But these measures are superficial and fail to address the underlying issues.
Data from our COVID Symptom Study app – which now has more than 4 million users in the UK, US and Sweden logging their health on a daily basis – has confirmed that people who are very overweight are tend to suffer the most dangerous effects of coronavirus and are more likely to end up in hospital with the disease. What’s more, being overweight increases the risk of health conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, which are also associated with worse outcomes from COVID-19. We asked the COVID Symptom Study app users to tell us how their eating and drinking habits had changed during lockdown. Around 30 per cent had gained an average of 6 lbs and increased their snacking. Snack foods are often highly processed, rich in saturated fat and starch, contain added sugar or sweeteners, and are low in fibre, which trigger unhealthy metabolic responses. Highly processed food leaves us hungry for more rather than sated. But these foods are cheap to make and profitable for the food industry. In the UK, we eat more ultra-processed food than any other country in Europe, partly due to the strong food industry lobby and its powerful marketing campaigns.