The Government's Obesity Strategy, More Of The Same Rhetoric - British Medical Journal

Main Category: Obesity / Weight Loss / Fitness
Article Date: 20 Nov 2008 - 5:00 PDT

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Nigel Hawkes chronicles a decade of the UK Government's attempts to tackle obesity, including its latest bid to turn the tide on obesity "which is so smothered in jargon" that it is hard to understand.

He says: "The danger of wrapping an issue such as obesity up in the language of sociology and systems analysis is that it all begins to seem impossibly complicated.

"It is as if one needs to solve all the problems of society in order to tackle one relatively small sub-problem.

"So the Government's strategy includes food supply, education, the design of towns, primary care, walking kids to school, tackling false perceptions, counselling, old Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all."

Observation column: National obesity strategy: what's the big idea?
BMJ Online
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British Medical Journal