Governments not serious about obesity

Concern about the impact of obesity and the need to tackle it is spreading, but most of the policies that follow are hollow.

Take last month’s encouraging call by EU health ministers. They argued for better education, more informative labelling and greater control over advertising to children. They called on countries to improve unhealthy diets and boost physical activity. But they stopped at guidelines and left it there.

The European Health Commissioner has gone further in supporting sugar taxes, but that is only one aspect of the debate.

Estonia has just adopted a sugar tax, but this only applies to beverages. It also includes flavoured milks, plant-based drinks and zero calorie drinks with sweeteners.

It doesn’t really seem policy makers are sufficiently serious because they are not adopting comprehensive measures.