It's hard to pin down the exact reason that we are smoking less. It could be the cost. It could be social pressure. It could be because you have to ask the shopkeeper to open a dodgy cupboard to hand you your packet like you're a sad old perv in an adult shop wanting a specialist item. It's probably a mixture of all the anti-smoking policies brought in, which will include the warning pictures on the packs.
For years, if you bought some smokes, you were given a small picture of what one of your body parts would look like if you carried on smoking. It's such a popular idea that we may see it on other products.
Campaigners are now saying we should using hard-hitting warning labels on food that can make you fat. The obvious choice would be pictures of naked obese people but using those images as a cautionary tale would seem offensive to the larger-boned community.
It also could require making the food packets larger to fit the picture on, which might mean larger portions, more people gaining weight, and the cycle continues.
All of these plans to tackle the UK's growing growing sideways problem think education is the key. If we could only teach people that healthy food is healthy for them and junk food is bad we'd have a nation of slim folk again. But I doubt there is anyone who doesn't know by now. If you walked up to anyone in the street and showed them a burger and a carrot everyone would know which could make you fatter. It's not that part of our brains that instructs us to eat.
This is evident when you have a GP telling you that you need to lose weight while his gut wears his shirt like a bank robber wears tights. These GPs sometimes have the audacity to use the phrase, “We need to do something about this BMI.” You're left thinking, “I'd better do something about it. I'm not sure you have a good track record of winning that fight.”
There's no way these GPs lack education on healthy eating habits but the information isn't enough to beat the cravings.
A warning label system is already effectively being used with the traffic light symbols you'll find on food. Sadly, it doesn't take long till an unintended response to the badges kicks in. If you pick up a pack with at least one of the salt, sugar or fat categories earning it a red light there is some part of your brain that knows it can look forward to a little treat. If you're holding something that's green across the board you know you're still going to be craving a snack five minutes later.
The one area where this could work is in forcing the manufacturers to change. We greedy, lizard-brained punters won't be slowed down by a warning label but if you're in the business of making a foodstuff you might not want to have to pop a skull and crossed bones on it. You might tweak the recipe instead. This is similar to how to sugar tax on fizzy drinks didn't lead to only the rich being able to have a Fanta, but the drinks having less sugar in general.
The British Heart Foundation, who floated the warning label idea, is also proposing other action to tackle the UK’s increasingly bad diet. We could see a ban on junk food firms sponsoring sport.
Currently energy drinks Carabao is linked to the English football’s League Cup, McDonald’s sponsors the Football Association’s youth football development programme, and KP Snacks are an official team partner of the Hundred cricket competition with the slogan, “Cricket – You'd have to be nuts to sit through this”, probably.
Surely sports sponsorship is the best case scenario. The people who are being tempted with bad foods are also being shown inspirational scenes of fit people being active. The other end of the spectrum would be burger restaurants sponsoring mobility scooter dealerships. That's the area where real damage will be done.
It's not the first time such ideas have been proposed but it's the first time in a while that a Labour Government has been in place to hear them. This is an administration that's been in power 1.29 Liz Trusses and already we have heard of beer garden smoking bans.
The goal is a good one. Something needs to be done as heart conditions have moved up the ranks of most common cause of death. This will have been caused, in part, by the number of smoking-related deaths dropping off. We could drive heart disease back down the league table without cutting our junk food intake if only we could get more people smoking again.
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