Wes Streeting says cutting 50 calories a day will solve obesity and save the NHS. That's bad politics, bad science and classic neoliberal blame-shifting. In this video, I take apart his arguments and ask whether he's naive or deliberately complicit in weakening our NHS.
This is the audio version:
This is the transcript:
Wes Streeting is the UK Health Secretary, and last weekend he made a claim which was shockingly wrong.
He said that if people in the UK simply cut their daily calorie intake by 50, obesity in this country would halve.
340,000 children, he said, would cease to be obese as a result, and 2 million adults would also cease to be obese.
It sounds incredibly simple, but let's be clear about it. This is both bad politics and bad science. As usual, Wes Streeting got everything wrong.
Let's talk about the politics first of all, because, in many ways, that's the easiest bit to explain.
Wes Streeting's strategy is incredibly clear. What he's trying to do is blame the public. That's you, and that's me for the crisis, in the NHS.
He's saying it's our fault that we have an NHS in crisis, and it can't supply the treatments that we want for things other than obesity, because we're eating too much.
This is just standard Labour policy. We've seen it with regard to disability benefits. They're saying it's the fault of the disabled that they can't get into work to make the money that they should be able to generate for themselves, to pay for the needs that they have, and therefore, they'll cut benefits and force them into doing so. Everything, according to Labour, is someone else's fault when that's not true. Most disabled people who have claimed benefits claim them because they need them.
People who are obese are, by and large, through no fault of their own, and I'll explain why in a minute, but Labour always seeks to dodge the real solutions that are required to any problem, because they pass the blame to someone else.
I've recently described this as being in the Pontius Pilate School of Politics. Wes Streeting is washing his hands of the problem of obesity and blaming others and saying, tough luck if the NHS can't now supply what you need. It's all your fault, not mine. And meanwhile, Streeting and Labour will be denying that they have any duty to solve the NHS and will instead be saying, "If you want a service that we can no longer supply, just call the private sector, they'll sort it for you," as if that is their real strategy.
So, if Labour's strategy with regard to the NHS, as far as politics is concerned, is flawed because what it actually leads to is private medicine, and that's not what people want, let's talk about the science.
The science that Wes Streeting is using is based upon a deeply out-of-date notion that has long been discredited in medical literature, which is that calories taken into our bodies equal calories out, and that if we don't use the calories that we take in, they turn into fat.
And this presumes that we are, what are called in scientific terms, closed systems. In other words, the environment around us doesn't matter when it comes to our health, because everything that matters with regard to our health is all about what our bodies are programmed to do, and this is completely untrue.
Very obviously, we are not closed systems, and the easiest way in which we know that is that we require food to come into us to make our bodies work. So the simple fact is that what we eat determines how much fuel we burn in our bodies. It's not just a matter of how many calories are in it. Calories are not neutral in this sense.
And again, medical literature, and I've taken advice on this issue, shows that this is true. In particular, and let's name the culprit, ultra-processed food is deliberately designed to lower our ability to burn calories. And it does that for one very good reason. Because it behaves in this way, it sends our brains a signal that we aren't full. And as a consequence, we are hungry, and therefore we need to eat more, and therefore we buy more ultra-processed food, and therefore we increase the profits of the companies making it, and that's why those foods are so dangerous.
It's basic science, and it's basic politics, mixed together, and Wes Streeting is ignoring that fact. He is presuming that all foods behave within us in the same way, but they don't. Our food environment matters.
But the fact is that what foods we can consume is very largely shaped by what's out there in the supermarkets, by what's promoted on television, and on food programmes, and on YouTube, and in other media, and so on. And everywhere, what is being promoted to us is high sugar content food that is going to addict us to repetitive eating, which is going to lead to the obesity problem.
The issue that we have, the issue that Wes Streeting has with obesity, is not that we lack willpower or choice; he's ignoring the fact that there is out there an industry that wants to addict us to its foods, and he's refusing to address that.
In fact, when he said that this problem existed, he said how businesses wanted to react to that, and he was referring to the food manufacturers and the food retailers when saying it was up to them. If they wanted to still promote two for one on high sugar content, frankly, dangerous foods for our wellbeing, that was okay with him; he wasn't going to regulate.
But the fact is, he's also ignoring another reality, which is that however much you exercise, you can't exercise yourself out of a bad diet. We are not a closed system. There's nothing that we can do about a bad diet if that's what we are being fed through no fault of our own.
So, Wes Streeting, saying that people must eat less, is ignoring the reality of what the food companies are doing to us. Unless he plans to regulate sugar, alcohol, ultra-processed foods and predatory marketing, with the last being particularly important, then the market has free rein to do whatever it wants and promote obesity day in, day out, meaning that food addiction will remain, and nothing will happen as a consequence of his comments.
Wes Streeting is therefore delivering neoliberal irresponsibility. He's letting markets create a crisis. He's saying people have the choice as to what they want to eat when they don't, because that is manipulated before they even get to making a choice. And when they get to make that choice, everything that is on offer to them is, by and large, addictive. And he says it's not the government's job to intervene, and therefore it's our fault that we are obese. And the result is that, he says, the NHS will inevitably be weakened, and there's nothing that can be done about that. But, as I said previously, that provides the private sector with all the opportunities that he wants to give to it, so long as, of course, you can afford to pay; the ultimate neoliberal answer to every question.
So the questions that I've got are very straightforward. Is Wes Streeting too naive to see how markets are using him? Or is he a willing participant in undermining public health because that's what he's doing? Or maybe, is it both?
Either way, Labour is failing, again, to defend the NHS and us, and for that, we have to hold it accountable.
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Calorie counting is a scam, pushed by Big Food to make you responsible for your metabolic health.
Clearly 50 grams of sugar is going to affect you differently to 50 grams of meat.
Read:
The Big Fat Surprise: why butter, meat, and cheese belong in a healthy diet (2015) by Nina Teicholz
https://amzn.eu/d/2ymQOEV
Metabolical: The truth about processed food and how it poisons people and the planet (2021) by Dr Robert Lustig
https://amzn.eu/d/cg9JW9C
As you alude to, much of our current obesity crisis is linked to socio economic causes and mental health issues caused by poverty, deprivation and austerity. Surely we should learn from our use of Valium in the 60s/70s and the 12 million people in our country currently taking SSRIs, that social problems are not generally fixed by pharmaceutical solutions. More cynically we could ask which pharmaceutical company has made large donations to result in this policy decision. It is short sighted, won’t work and will be another expensive NHS failure. It seems we never learn that social problems do not have medical solutions.
George Orwell commented on the fact that a millionaire will happily breakfast on a glass of orange juice and a Ryvita (ugh!) while a poor man will want the full English (For those unfamiliar Eggs, Bacon, Fried Bread, Mushrooms etc)
Which brings another point namely that of overeating under stress.
That stress of course being all to often a result of the policies of HM Govt…………..
I like Ryvita
Especially te dfark rye ones
The only carbs I will now allow with my cheese
Orange juice is really bad for you
Most of full Engliush is very good for you
That is how far wrong our undertsanding of food now is
The intention is to make a point about one of the causes of over eating
Absolute nonsense. I await to see your peer reviewed paper on the science of orange juice v full English breakfast. Ironic given your other comments about the dangers of processed foods!
You aren’t being consistent with threads quoted on the same day on your own blog, let alone known medical journals.
Just go and read the science
Orange juice is a sugar laden ultra processed food that is deeply detrimental
A full English delivers high protein and essential fats, but cut out the beans, hash browns and bread .
If you don’t know why the rest including the fats are essential, start reading.
Orange juice is bad sugary acid and consuming much of it will rot your teeth and help make you fat, but the full English you have with it will kill you. Cancer and heart-disease both love meat and animal proteins.
Interesting abstacts here, but there are an absolute ton of others out there too:
“Meat and fish consumption and cancer in Canada”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18444165/
“Meat consumption and cancer risk: a critical review of published meta-analyses”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26633248/
The science is in on the links between meat and cancer. Then it really is up to the individual. I don’t eat meat, but I drink alcohol, another carcinogen. Life is risk management, really.
Less intuitive are the links between meat, diabetes and lung disease. Did you know ham, for example, is bad for the lungs (even if you eat it rather than smoking it 🙂 and for the same reason as smoking – nitrates?
Of course, the neolib corporations Richard rightly puts the sword on a regular basis will fight this evidence tooth and nail, and with willing shills like little Streeting in govt, I have to say, they’ll probably win.
Sorry Bill, but you have just about everything wrong. I suggest you read rather more widely.
I have things wrong? My ego doesn’t mind that, but are you really arguing with the evidence I posted? I suggest it is you who didn’t do any reading.
I’m puzzled, too, by your contradictory condemnation of processed foods with your endorsment of fried breakfast foods – what else do you think sausages and bacon are if not processed foods?
Where is the logic I otherwise very much admire in your takes on politics and economics?
Just go and read about Keto diets I suggest.
And the importance of having facts, but not vegetable oils, and the fact that avoiding carohydrates is the basis for good health. The evidemnce is all there. Start with Robert Lustig.
Hang on here . . . when you talk about orange juice, Richard, are you referring to liquid that you buy?
I do believe that that can be dangerous but surely there isn’t much wrong with MY orange juice that I take daily?
I cut an orange in two, squeeze it by hand on a glass juicer and drink the proceeds.
Little wrong with that surely?
It’s not great: you’ve lost all the important bits and keep the sweet hit. Eat the orange if you wish, but frankly the mythology around fruit being good for us is misplaced: they’re laden with sugars we don’t need. When we had them only when in season they were fine. 365 days a year, and ones designed to be especially sweet, as all those on sale are, and they’re just another UPF.
For those interested in orange juice, watch this and its relationship with excess glucose and insulin resistance. https://youtu.be/n_CqI18kICU?si=hwNGNz6nX4r__YlO
John, one important reason why Orwell knew the poor man would want (but likely not get) a full English breakfast is because he knew from his own experience of doing working class jobs (in those days mostly hard, manual, labour) that you burn a lots more calories doing that than wandering around a very large house in your silk dressing gown for hours, while stopping occasionally to read the morning papers. I speak from experience when I say that in my early years working on the railway and down a coal mine I burnt a damn sight more calories every day than I did for the final 25 years of my working life as an academic. Unfortunately, in the former life I either didn’t have the time of money to eat a full English breakfast (particularly not when getting up a 4.30am for a 6am start) – except at weekends, maybe.
Spot on
Is Wes Streeting the Marie Antoinette of British politics or what?
Talk about out of touch.
Does he not realise that people have been cutting more than 50 effing calories from their diet since 2010 because of austerity induced poverty? The kids turning up to school hungry; mothers going without meals; food banks; the bedroom tax.
Honestly – he should keep off the poppers and cut back on himself, especially his gob.
Much to agree with
Not to mention the family system around food has been utterly altered.
It now requires every adult to slave in to old age, to pay for the basics. They need fast calories, from neoliberal super chains.
No longer is there time or resources to do a daily shop of local food, and prepare real food.
Families are divided and insecure as they feed the rentier profits.
Does Wes live in a shared house, with a shared kitchen, and live in permanent insecurity?
50 calories is so wrong, on so many levels.
First of all its not enough. To lose a pound a week, (what is considered to be a safe rate of loss), you need to burn an extra 3500 calories – 500 a day not 50.
Second, as you so rightly point out, calorie counting is a terrible way to measure what goes in – it takes no account of the food matrix, or how our bodies deal with it. Part of the problem is poverty. Cheap calories are nearly always bad calories – biscuits, cakes, sweets, fizzy drinks, and lead to roller-coaster sugar surges, which make you want to eat more. And far too many people in the UK live in food deserts, where there is no alternative accessible to them.
There is so much a willing government could do to solve this AND achieve good growth:
They could bring back proper schools meals that teach people what a decent meal can look like. Meals that would vary according to what’s in season rather than what’s the latest thing to push.
They could bring proper hospital catering that makes food part of the healing process for patients and part of the support process for staff.
They could back this up with a regenerative food and farming strategy that benefits small farmers who care over big agriculture.
This would create meaningful jobs, keep money in local and regional economies and make people better off – without harming
anyone or any thing except Big Food, Big Agri and Big Pharma.
Telling people to eat fewer calories to solve the obesity crisis is like telling them to recycle plastics to solve the climate crisis. It does absolutely nothing to address the root causes, but lets the real baddies off the hook.
Which is of course the whole point.
Much to agree with
I have been obese since I was 5 years old, I saw my first dietitian at 6 years old. I am now 70, my mother cooked when I was a kid good quality home food. Even Richard is wrong here, some of us (very few admittedly) are genetically predisposed to obesity, its almost as if we wait for a famine that hasn’t come. I’ve had the most dangerous operation to reduce my weight there is (a bilo pancreatic diversion (it ranks in danger to brain surgery and open heart surgery)) It worked for 10 years, then my body beat it. Its not only ultra processed food. Now Richard will argue I’m wrong, however in my case he certainly is. I have tried every method to reduce my weight there is and I am an expert, he’s just plain wrong. I can survive on 500 calories a day, no bread no sugar no fat no processed food whatsoever, you’ll tell me I’m a liar, every dietitian has told me that, The only person who believed me was my bilo surgeon, who dealt with only the obese. He said you are a genetic error he told me that no matter what was done or I did that my obesity problem would return, and ………………it has. I can no longer lose weight even at 500 calories a day (home cooked food, cabbage fish, eggs salads all the unprocessed good stuff, so sorry Richard you are not right.)
You have not read what I wrote.
I carefully caveated what I said to make clear I was referring to most, but all obesity.
So you are making claims about something I did not say. But I am right about most obesity.
And I am right. I also allowed fur exceptions, which you may be.
But I would ask, have you tried a keto diet?
Does anyone know if foodbanks supply ultra-processed food, e.g. in tins?
Inevitably yes on occasion.
The extent of indoctrination of most of the under 50s can be illustrated by my 6th form students when we go on trips (Parliament next Wednesday!). They will walk past all sorts of cafes and restaurants serving excellent food (even an all day English, minus the browns, beans and bread) to find a McDonalds. I had one student standing outside an exceptional cafe in a national trust property lamenting the lack of food – I suggested the cafe, she wailed ‘there’s no Maccies’. Another refused to contemplate a pizza, wholly made on the premises, as it wasn’t a Dominos.
I despair.
But let’s name what those young people are suffering from. It is addiction, and that is what we need to call it to fight it.