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19 Aug 2014
Fitness, not food, holds key to solving health crisis: report
BY
Jak Phillips
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A decline in physical activity across the UK population in recent decades has coincided with a steady increase in obesity
photo: Shutterstock
An influential new report from a British think tank has given further support to the notion that inactivity, not obesity, is at the root of the UK’s health crisis. Published by the Institute of Economic Affairs, The Fat Lie studies evidence from DEFRA, the National Diet and Nutrition Survey, the ONS and the British Heart Foundation, finding all the evidence indicates that per capita consumption of sugar, fat and calories has been falling in the UK for decades.
The report notes that the average body weight of English adults has increased by two kilograms since 2002, while calorie consumption has fallen four per cent and sugar consumption has slipped nearly 7.5 per cent. Highlighting the decline in physical activity – an ongoing trend since the 1970s – as the reason weight increase, the report points out that the rise of office jobs and labour saving devices means people have fewer opportunities for physical activity, both at work and at home.
The Fat Lie echoes many of the sentiments from ukactive’s influential January 2014 report Turning the tide of inactivity, and subscribes to the growing school of thought that it is perfectly possible to be “fat and fit,” with activity levels, not necessarily BMI, the key to healthy living.
“The root cause of Britain’s rising obesity levels has not been a rise in calorie intake but a rise in inactivity,” said the report’s author Christopher Snowdon.
“With obesity now featuring so heavily in the media it is worrying that so few people know that our largely sedentary lifestyles, not our appetites, have been the driving force behind the UK’s expanding waistlines.
“Campaigners promoting a healthy lifestyle should refocus their efforts towards encouraging exercise and away from a war on food. Anti-market policies aimed at the whole population, such as fat taxes, will do nothing for the nation’s health.”
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