LONDON LETTER:Despite a decade of state encouragement, the British are still eating badly, writes MARK HENNESSY
LEWISHAM IN east London has a weight problem. One-quarter of 11-year-olds are obese, while the local crematorium has had to install a larger oven to deal with ever-larger coffins.
Local councillors are now considering imposing a “no-fry zone” around schools, banning the opening of fast-food outlets within 400m (1,300ft) of a schoolyard in a bid to wean children off fatty foods.
Since 1997, the Labour government has spent hundreds of millions on public information campaigns to encourage people to eat better, though the results are patchy, at best – particularly in poorer areas.
In Lewisham, for example, just one-third of adults eat the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, while teenagers do even worse, with just one in seven eating the required amount.
Milk consumption by children in Lewisham has fallen in recent years, the amount of fish in the diets of locals is half the recommended amount and two-thirds of adults in the borough are overweight or obese.
The problems live on, even after death. Lewisham council was the first local authority to order a 44in-wide cremator from the US to cope with extra-large coffins and, for a time, it dealt with remains from the west midlands and beyond.
However, the need for extra-large furnaces has spread, with Mintlyn Crematorium in Bawsey also installing one.
Tim Morris, chief executive of the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management, says the institute is contacted by undertakers from all over Britain struggling to cremate the remains of overweight people.
Back in Lewisham, figures from the London Health Observatory show that one in 10 children going to primary school for the first time are already obese. This rises to one in four by the time they are ready to leave for second level.
Throughout the UK, a quarter of men and three out of 10 women reach the “five-a-day” target set by the government, though the figures for children are significantly poorer, with 19 per cent of boys and 20 per cent of girls reaching it.
The recession may explain the drop in fruit and vegetable sales. “Purchases of fresh fruit fell by 7.7 per cent between 2007 and 2008 and fresh green vegetables fell by 9.6 per cent,” the UK National Health Service (NHS) said this week.
Obesity is costing the NHS dearly. Almost 1.3 million items of prescription medicine were dispensed in 2008 to treat obese patients – 10 times the number given out in 1999 – while 8,000 patients were hospitalised last year because of it.
By 2015, the situation could become significantly worse, with one report warning that 36 per cent of males and 28 per cent of females aged between 21 and 60 will be obese. By 2025 it is estimated that the number will rise to 47 per cent of men and 36 per cent of women.
If the “no-fry zone” idea in Lewisham is accepted, new fast-food outlets would be barred from opening near a school, while those already there would be encouraged to improve their menus.
Supporters of the idea can expect opposition however. The UK was McDonald’s best-performing major market last year, with sales up by 11 per cent and customers up by 7.5 per cent.
However, fast food is but one of the problems of Britain’s schoolchildren. They spend £646 million (€735 million) on junk-food breakfasts such as cakes, biscuits and meat-snacks, according to cereal manufacturer Kellogg’s.
Almost one-quarter of all seven- to 14-year-olds go to school without a sit-down breakfast at home, which teachers say affects their performance as the morning continues and their sugar levels drop.
Almost half of all men in England and one-third of women are overweight, while an additional 17 per cent of men and 21 per cent of women are obese, according to official statistics.
The problem gets worse with age.
About 28 per cent of men and 27 per cent of women aged between 16 and 24 are overweight or obese, but 76 per cent of men and 68 per cent of women aged 55 to 64 are overweight or obese. And the figures have doubled since the 1980s.
England’s weight problem is costing billions, according to the Local Government Association, which says furniture in classrooms, gyms and canteens is having to be increased in width.
Firemen frequently have to winch overweight people out of buildings during emergencies, while ambulances are being equipped with extra-wide stretchers and winches.
In the longer term, local authority chiefs warn that Britain’s weight problem will affect buses, trains and trams, “since they will be able to accommodate fewer passengers as people get bigger”.
On the plus side, however, not all of the efforts have failed.
In 2008, 39 per cent of men and 29 per cent of women aged 16 and over met the official target of 30 minutes’ exercise a day, compared with 32 per cent and 21 per cent respectively in 1997.