Government to confront fat Britain

Sunday, 28 December 2003 5:54 AM

Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson in a draft report, to be published in full next year, called on the Department of Health to give public guidance on the appropriate amount of physical exercise for fat Brits.

An advertising campaign will run alongside the report.

Tessa Jowell, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, said yesterday that ministers were looking at a "range of steps" to tackle the country's worsening obesity crisis

The Government would be taking onboard ways to increase exercise involvement, drawing on the experiments in Finland.

"I think the important fact about Finland is that Finland is one of the few countries in the world that's seen a steady increase in people getting active and participating in sport, with all the consequent benefits for health.

"What we've been looking at is the range of steps that the government has taken in order to promote that increased participation, and looking to applying those lessons to the increase in participation that we want to secure in this country."

Ms Jowell said was aware of the UK's high obesity rates, especially among children, with heart disease increasingly prevalent. Rates of obesity were "very disturbing indeed," she stressed.

'Obesity has been very much under the spotlight recently, with the increased rates of obesity among children. I think the estimates are something like 15 per cent of our children are clinically obese, and the figure is rising.

'The evidence shows that, if we could increase levels of participation from our current 32 per cent of people taking the prescribed amount of moderate activity, we would see a consequent reduction in deaths from heart disease as a result."

Ms Jowell said the Government was considering a system of tax breaks to spur more people to take physical exercise.

'There are a whole range of ideas which are currently in place, and tax breaks have certainly been on the table.

'The problem with that though is that, given that the greatest focus should be on those who need the greatest help, that would tend to advantage people who are in work, who are already disproportionately taking part in exercise.'

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