\n<\/p>\n
The MPs\u2019 report mentioned in your editorial is welcome and overdue (The Guardian view on obesity: put public health before food industry pressure, 15 July). The health select committee is right to clarify that obesity is an engineered outcome, not a failure of willpower. But there\u2019s a flaw running through decades of British food policy that risks being repeated: the \u201chigh in fat, salt or sugar\u201d framework itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cHigh in fat, salt or sugar\u201d combines three nutrients as though they carry equivalent blame. However, the evidence on weight gain and type 2 diabetes points to sugar and refined carbohydrates as the primary drivers, not fat. Salt matters, chiefly when combined with sugar, but the body needs salt to function. Fat matters because without it many fat-soluble vitamins will just pass through our bodies. We need no sugar at all.<\/p>\n
The low-fat, calorie-controlled orthodoxy inherited from flawed nutritional science still shapes labelling, reformulation targets and public understanding, encouraging manufacturers to strip out fat and replace it with sweet-tasting substitutes, while ticking the \u201chealthier\u201d box.<\/p>\n
To hold supermarkets and manufacturers to account, the target must be sharpened. The culprit is the ultra-processed food model itself: products engineered for shelf life, craveability and margin, using cheap sugar and refined starch as primary ingredients. Ice-cream or potato crisps sold on rare occasions are fine, but the food system that has made them the cheapest, most heavily advertised, most convenient choice is the problem.<\/p>\n
We shouldn\u2019t need to romanticise the Greggs sausage roll as some kind of national treasure. Consider it a treat, not a staple. That\u2019s the shift in our relationship with ultra-processed food that this report should be pushing for \u2013 one built on\u00a0carbohydrate and sugar reduction, not a blunt fat-and-salt panic that has already failed us. Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please <\/em><\/strong>email<\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/strong>us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our <\/em><\/strong>letters<\/em><\/strong> section.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The MPs\u2019 report mentioned in your editorial is welcome and overdue (The Guardian view on obesity: put public health before food industry pressure, 15 July). The health select committee is right to clarify that obesity is an engineered outcome, not a failure of willpower. But there\u2019s a flaw running through decades of British food policy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[1206,1725,933,1533,1741,7681],"class_list":{"0":"post-51331","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-food","10":"tag-obesity","11":"tag-reduce","12":"tag-target","13":"tag-ultraprocessed"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
James Capon<\/strong>
Waterloo, Belgium<\/em><\/p>\n