Conflicts of interest? Chair of the National Obesity Forum

I attended a recent National Obesity Forum conference in Wales.  LighterLife were one of the sponsors and had a stand for the delegates to visit during every break (500-600 calories a day in artificial liquid form is not my idea of a healthy diet).

I picked up a leaflet on LighterLife and found this wonderful endorsement on the front:

“What’s impressive about LighterLife is that it’s not just weight reduction being induced, but also behavioural changes being taught, and background information and advice being offered. New habits are being formed which will last much longer than the actual programme itself, and that’s a very important aspect. The results I have seen from LighterLife are very impressive.”

Who said that? None other than the chair of the National Obesity Forum -  Dr David Haslam (GP and Clinical Director of the National Obesity Forum).

I also picked up at the conference a separate booklet written by David Haslam (DH), Colin Waine (former chair of the NOF) and Anthony R Leeds (ARL) called “Medical Management During Effective Weight Loss” (*). I lost count of the number of mentions for VLCD (Very Low Calorie Diets – liquid replacement diets essentially). We find declarations of interest at the back of this booklet as follows:

“DH consults for LighterLife“.

“ARL is employed as Medical Director by Cambridge Health and Weight Plan” (that’s the Cambridge Diet to me and you).

Why can’t the chair of the National Obesity Forum be independent and be more interested in real, healthy food than artificial meal replacements? I know that there’s not much margin in plain chicken and broccoli, but please surely this one post in the country should be leading the way?

(*) p.s. the Medical Management During Effective Weight Loss booklet was produced with an educational grant from Cambridge Health & Weight Plan.