Author, obesity researcher .

Australian Dietary Guidelines (Feb 2013)

New Australian Dietary Guidelines were published on February 18th 2013. Hundreds of pages of information are available here. The main “Eat for health: Australian Dietary Guidelines” document alone is 226 pages. The latest guidelines acknowledge the extent of the problem: “If current trends continue in Australia, it is estimated that by 2025, 83% of men [...]

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The medical profession’s prescription for the nation’s obesity crisis

Back in April 2012, The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges announced that they were launching a review into the UK obesity crisis. The initiative was launched in a front page article in The Observer 15th April 2012. The idea was that the body that represents 220,000 doctors in the UK would seek evidence from any [...]

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Coca-Cola, Obesity and Conflict

Coca-Cola launched an advert about obesity. You can see the advert here as part of a short clip on ABC news. The ABC news item had an interesting factoid in it: “Sugary sodas are the number one source of calories in the American diet.” The Coca-cola advert has a female voice over – that kind [...]

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The men who made us fat – Episode 3

The final episode (aired 12th July 2012)  looked at so called ‘healthy food’ and how this is marketed to people to convince them that it is OK to eat. Jacques Peretti starts the programme with a visit to a company called Kantar – they track the buying behaviour of 30,000 households nationwide. They sell this [...]

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The men who made us fat – Episode 2

Here we go again! Episode 2 with Jacques Peretti. 24 million of us are now overweight “Our appetites supersized by big business.” This one is all about portion size. Jacques Peretti goes to Jester’s Diner in Great Yarmouth to find Britain’s biggest breakfast. The owner, Martin Smith, offers Peretti a choice of “The Big Boy” [...]

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The men who made us fat

I’ve just finished watching this terrific programme on BBC2 (Thursday 14th June 2012). It will be on iplayer for just a week from now here. Full marks to the presenter, Jacques Peretti for getting together such greats as Robert Lustig, Gary Taubes, David Kessler, Philip James and for honouring John Yudkin posthumously. The programme opened [...]

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Weight Watchers New Year’s Day advert

Weight Watchers are running one of the longest adverts on British television, simultaneously on commercial channels, between 6.30pm and 7pm on January 1 2012. The advert was announced in the media so that coverage could start before the advert. The advert (three minutes and 10 seconds long) is fronted by Alesha Dixon who has never [...]

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24,000 diabetes deaths a year ‘could be avoided’

This news story broke on 14 December 2011. There are 2.3 million diabetics in the UK. The vast majority (c. 90-95%) are type 2 diabetics – all will be explained below. The remainder are type 1 diabetics. A recent (the first ever) audit on patient deaths from diabetes notes that approximately 70-75,000 diabetic patients die [...]

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England’s Obesity Strategy (not)

On Thursday 13 October, 2011, the Department of Health issued this press release, optimistically called “Government calls time on obesity.”  The government has done anything but. We need to remember that the UK health service was devolved in 1999, with England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland managed separately from this point forth. Hence, this Department [...]

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Denmark Fat Tax

In March 2003, Denmark became the first country in the world to introduce laws to severely restrict consumption of trans fats. This has been reported as a ban on trans fats, but the law is on ingredients rather than final products and the limit was placed at 2% of fats and oils to be used [...]

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