Obesity researcher: Obesity could be as serious a risk as smoking

Friday, 26 August 2011 11:29 AM

Professor Klim McPherson , Oxford University expert and one of the lead researchers, compares obesity to smoking in a BBC interview:

"We had to tax cigarettes because they were killing too many people. Likewise obesity will become as serious if not more serious in the near future and governments will have to act. It seems sensible to me that they should act now rather than later.

"The point I think is that the availability of cheap high density food is much too great to enable people to sensibly control their weight easily.

"Government's responsibility is to look after the health of its citizens that is its primary responsibility and it is neglecting that responsibility by not getting tougher with industry.

"The bottom line is that industry has to make money for its shareholders, that's what it has to do and if doing what the government says it ought to do is going to make less money they won't do it."

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