Supermarkets told to cut 100 calories from shoppers’ baskets in new anti-obesity drive

Not the food manufacturers then?

Strange place to start…

“Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: “If everyone who is overweight reduced their calorie intake by around 200 calories a day – the equivalent of a bottle of fizzy drink – obesity would be halved.”

Does the health secretary not realise that the vast majority of fizzy drinks are basically calorie free now?

This is a waste of money. Go back to the drawing board.

The government should just build their own MyFitnessPal style app which counts calories, builds structured meal plans, educates and then offers coupons/discounts on healthy food. Make it completely free and force all food/drink manufacturers to provide the data.

Increase VAT on processed foods, high fat foods, junk food and sweets. Decrease VAT on fruit, veg, whole foods and protein.

That’s as toothless as asking telecos to stop spoofed caller-id

At some point, we have to let people do their thing and take personal responsibility for managing their health and their weight.

We are biologically programmed to crave high fat, high sugar, high carb foods.

In a free market, these items are always going to be readily available. At what point does taxation, and shrinkflation, (that have already been implemented with little to no success), stop being the answer?

Everyone has known for years that you need to eat lots of fruit and veg, avoid junk food, don’t smoke, so some exercise.

We also live in a society where convenience is king. People work such long hours, and modern demands are such that people are living their lives too exhausted to be able to prioritise their diet and health.

Knowledge is not the answer.

Taxation is not the answer.

I doubt changing a store layout is the answer, either.

The only answers lie with drastic, unpalatable / morally compromising options.

Those being – ban on junk food. Healthcare privatisation.

Actually kinda sucks for those who rely on cheap calories to get our daily needs and aren’t fat. Low calorie foods are not my friend, I’m always a full fat milk kind of guy (and I never get fat)

How about the government stop policing what people buy/eat, and rather invest in public awareness campaigns **and preventative healthcare**.

Governments role in what we shop should be limited to preventing harmful stuff being added into our foods.

Just more excuses for supermarkets to give less for the same price 

You can tell it’s bullshit because they are pretending they care about your health. this is yet another price increase/ shrinkflation

Not even a single bag of walkers crips. This is just going to be another attempt at ripping off shoppers who are already struggling no doubt. 

Or just take some responsibility to not ruin it for us who look after our bodies

Dumb af. Food education needs to improve. Stop the fad diets and teach the people about **balanced** diets and caloric intake.

I’m having to endure an NHS pre-diabetes course to try & stave off the onset of type2 diabetes. I’m particularly prone due to being south Asian.

Over the past 3 years my weight has gone up uncontrollably (although I’m not overweight officially) & my diet slowly changed from healthy, fresh food & lots of homemade meals to eating highly processed, unhealthy food.

The reason for that is squarely on my GP, who took 3 years to diagnose & then treat the symptoms of perimenopause. I was so exhausted for 3 years that I could only manage the bare minimum of “take stuff out of the freezer, put it in the oven, eat off one plate” because both cooking & then doing the dishes was completely physically beyond me by the end of a work day.

Prior to that, I was a healthy & athletic lady who walked hundreds of miles a year carrying heavy rucksacks up mountains & called it a holiday. By the time I got prescribed HRT I could barely walk up the hill outside my house to the Dr’s.

Are they going to give us a weekly ration book too.

I feel like this really depends on how you buy your food – is it 100% from the supermarket, or is some of it from takeaways/restaurants etc? I know people that eat out several times a week – their calories would barely be touched by this policy, but mine (I have allergies, so pretty much all my food is made at home) would be.

(And their shopping basket would make it look like they eat a LOT less than I do, which isn’t the case). Does seem a tad unfair.

>Supermarkets will be required to report sales data and those that fail to hit targets could face financial penalties, Nesta suggested.

It could also push people to more takeaways if they’re getting shamed for buying less healthy stuff in the shops.

(It looks like calories labelling laws don’t apply to takeaways etc. with less than 250 employees)

The government could invest in outdoor and indoor leisure spaces where people can exercise and improve their physical health. 

Fuck off anti-obesity. That’s a fucking lie. It’s just a window to open up paying more for less food so they can scrape your wallet even more.

Fucking good. The amount of shopping trolleys I see without a single veg, only highly processed American shit is way too much

I always find it funny the conversation around this is always around the state in your basket. But zero discussion is had around private companies employing psychologists to sub consciously fuck you into buying shite you don’t need.

We need such massive reform in this country around the nations national thinking.

You’ll have people age 73 unironically calling for people to have more self control. As they drink a litre of vodka every weekend, didn’t use seatbelts and were against smoking bans.