As a governor of my local primary school (400+ kids), I would have noticed more than 30% of fat kids! Where does obese start?

I am quite sure that a lot of this is job creation for whoever is “in charge” of this problem (such as there is one). The use of the word epidemic is quite symptomatic, because it makes it sound like an illness, and therefore removes responsibility from people (like much of the things a government does).

I have also little time for the “working parents do not have time” argument. There is a lot of lazyness. Both my wife and me work full time, it does not stop my kids going to sport activities almost everyday (which means most days end at 8pm when they go to bed), including both weekend days. Try coaching rugby on sunday mornings when its cold and it rains (the kids turn up though, and they’re under 7s!). The food as a rule is home made.

There are plenty of ways and help if one bothers to look for them. But it is so much easier to do nothing, and blame the “epidemic”.

Rescue him, treat him, prosecute him for driving without due care and attention. Combines both due compassion for those in need and personal responsibility for the consequences of his actions.

Reminds me of my flying training. On detachment to a Scottish airfield, we pointed out that there were few suitable fields in which to carry out a forced landing if we should suffer an engine failure, and asked an instructor what we should do if we were below parachute height. He suggested that both crew memebers should undress and get into a compromising position. When asked if that would help, he said “No, but it will give the crash investigators something interesting to think about”.

Oh, did you live in Glasgow once too?

I take your point,LFAT, but I reckon it’s hard to get right. As Shaun says, How far do we take this?

I’m sure many a Quango started out with good intentions about educating us all to the consequences of being fatties, smokers and boozers, but I think it will inevitably end up with hundreds and hundreds of the buggers, a huge network of the Righteous, ‘experts’, poking around into our private lives. People don’t like it. It breeds resentment. How many quangos are there now? 1400 or something? Would the Tories cut them right back?

The only way to educate people about personal responsibility is to give it to them. In other words leave them alone.

As for healthcare, ideally yes, people who choose to live on a diet of salt, deep-fried Mars Bars and Turps, should pay for their health care. But I think that has more to do with dismantling the Soviet Healthcare System we have.

How far do we take this? If a guy injures himself in a car accident that is self-evidently his fault (found in the vehicle with his trousers around his knees and his willy out, as in once recent case), should the emergency services refuse to treat him/rescue him? If we simply choose to invoice said, ahem, masturbator then all we really do is create another insurance market where the feckless rich become strangely liberated.

With respect to lifestyle illnesses and cancers which increase in prevalence with certain behaviours, would it not perhaps be better to say that ‘we’ll still help you but realistically you’re probably still going to die and us helping you will be painful and traumatic and most likely unsuccessful so you’re better off doing everything in your power, yes, YOUR power, to avoid getting it’. To instil personal responsibility, you have to tell people how things are, not how they’d wish them to be.

However, LFAT’s first prong is about making me accept the consequences of my choice – i.e. that I will either have to pay for the surgery that I make necessary, or die even younger. And the second prong makes me aware of the nature of the choice that I am making, and the ways that I can exercise (sorry) my freedom to choose, by allowing me to be educated as to the consequences of being fat and the ways by which I can avoid it, if I choose to.

“A future Conservative government needs to take a two-pronged approach to obesity.”

No. ANY future government needs to take a zero-pronged approach to obesity. Since when was it within any government’s remit to tell us what not to eat?

What they need to do is sack any useless, interfering Quangos who like to call themselves diet ‘experts’, and then let parents, schools, and even the pilsbury doughboys weebling down our streets to the BurgerMe bar, decide for themselves what they want to eat.

Aren’t the Conservatives supposed to be about personal responsibility and small government?

I would indeed ask for financial contributions towards NHS treatment for everyone who develops a condition that is scientifically proven (and has been ‘re-proven’ many times over) to be linked to their behaviour. I wouldn’t ask for the whole amount because you can’t technically ‘prove’ that smoking caused cancer in an individual case, but I reckon a 25% contribution is a nice comprimise.

There is also the behavioural aspect which has a lot to do with how your parents responded to food when you were young. And it’s not just the Mcdonalds mums that are causing the problem but possibly also the one’s who think they’re doing the right thing by banning anything sweet or snack like. I grew up in a household where raw carrots and a handful of sunflower seeds were treats. So obviously when I first got a newspaper round wage – it all got reinvested at the corner shop and more flavoursome snacks. I have since grown out of that and work damn hard not to consider every snack food as the last one I might ever get … gobble gooble. And of course there is the 5 times a week gym trip.

Finally, I have a great solution. Instead of having an alcohol aisle at the supermarket – have a fatties aisle – so anyone buying snack food as to queue up in the extra-wide fatty aisle. Oh the shame….