The coalition Government’s plans to tackle obesity by brokering ‘responsibility deals’ with fast-food chains have been labelled ‘pure illusion’ in a report for the World Health Organisation from several leading academics.
The Department of Health claim the deals allow chains to make ‘a significant contribution to improving public health’, but the report argues tougher regulation and subsidies for fresh produce production are the only effective way to cut the obesity epidemic.
One of the authors of the study, Professor Roberto de Vogli from the University of California, told the Independent: ‘Governments should take steps to regulate the economies – not let the invisible hand of the market self-regulate the food system.’
Meanwhile the Guardian reports that Britain is increasingly taking more drastic action to shed the pounds, with a massive 43% jump in liposuction procedures in 2013.
Although this was not the most popular operation, with more than 11,000 breast implants performed.
Rajiv Grover, president of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, claimed: ‘the public are choosing tried and tested surgical methods rather than the magical-sounding quick fixes that fail to deliver results.’
Finally, the Daily Mail reports that one in five lung transplants in Britain comes from a twenty a day smoker, with smokers donating half of all transplanted lungs.
The study looked at 237 lung transplants over a six month period at Harefield Hospital in London and found that there was no adverse effect on short or medium term survival rates of receiving lungs from a heavy smoker.
Dr André Simon, director of heart and lung transplantation at Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust told the Mail turning down lungs from smokers ‘significantly decreases their chances of survival’
