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The government’s latest obesity strategy includes a watershed on advertising unhealthy foods and changes to labelling. But is that enough to reverse the crisis, or should the emphasis be on tackling food poverty and improving access to clinical support? Georgina Bailey reports

“I had a very common underlying condition. My friends, I was too fat,” Boris Johnson said as he stood at the podium of Conservative party conference 2020 and told delegates why his experience of Covid-19 the previous April had been so severe.

In February last year no one could have predicted the tumultuous events that would follow, as lockdown continues nearly 12 months on from initial reports of coronavirus.

Alone in our houses with nothing to do but watch TV, scroll on our phones, and overthink, it can be a recipe for a mental health disaster.

While you’d think lockdown would create some relief for people suffering with body image issues, as the pressure to look good is off, experts say the opposite has been true.

HAVING just one small alcoholic drink a day could increase your risk of a deadly heart condition, doctors have warned.

Experts claim that just half a glass of wine or a small bottle of beer can lead to Atrial Fibrillation (AF) - a condition that causes an abnormally fast pulse.

One in five women and one in eight men screened positive for a possible eating disorder in 2019, recently published NHS England figures show.

When questioned about their relationship with food, 16% of adults who took part in the Health Survey for England 2019 were flagged up as potentially having an eating disorder. The proportion screening positive increased as household income decreased.

Known Covid comorbidities are not expected to have a large impact on the mortality rates in India, compared to a higher income country like England, a new study has found. 

The study was conducted to understand how known Covid-19 health risk factors affect mortality rates and the age distribution of mortality in a lower-middle-income country like India, and identify which health conditions drive the differences in a high-income country like England.

Beat charity for people suffering with eating disorders has said their helplines are open on the day ‘for a reason’.

The proportion of adults with diagnosed diabetes trebled in England between 1994 and 2019, according to latest research.

The findings, which relate to both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, are based on analysis of the latest results from the Health Survey for England 2019, which is commissioned by NHS Digital.

According to a new study, social media users are more likely to eat healthy or junk food if they think their friends do the same.

Researchers from Aston University’s School of Life and Health Sciences found that participants ate an extra fifth of a portion of fruit and vegetables themselves for every portion they thought their social media peers ate. So, if they believed their friends got their ‘five a day’ of fruit and veg, they were likely to eat an extra portion themselves.

On the flip side, just as social media appeared to influence healthy eating habits, it also appeared to influence unhealthy ones. The researchers found that Facebook users consumed an extra portion of unhealthy snack foods and sugary drinks for every three portions they believed their online social circles did, suggesting that we eat around a third more junk food if we think our friends are doing the same.

Now there’s a new reason to protect greenspace in our urban neighborhoods: a European study that finds lower rates of smoking, and especially more success in quitting, when people live around parks, trees and gardens.

The findings are based on a sample of 8,059 people living in the UK who participated in the annual Health Survey for England (HSE) and answered questions about where they live, their health and other lifestyle factors. It was conducted by psychologists at the University of Plymouth, the University of Exeter and the University of Vienna, with the results available online through the journal Social Science & Medicine.

Game-changing research showed that following a 12-week diet together with a healthier lifestyle could also see patients shedding two stone within a year. In the study, 61 percent of volunteers put diabetes in reverse, compared to 12 percent who did not follow the regime. Researchers in Qatar recruited 150 patients, half of whom followed the Cambridge Weight Plan to kickstart their weight loss.

Scrolling through your social platform of choice, it is easy to miss the sexism among a sea of snackable content. It’s not as overt as it once was. No, this is more subtle, though no less pernicious.  

Women have long been subjected to ad campaigns about pleasing their husbands, looking after kids and keeping in 'good shape'. Women have long been plastered across billboards with the aim of sexualising everything from cars and beer, to air conditioning units. And we’ve long been shamed into feeling like we should be unhappy with our appearance, whether that’s through overt body shaming or more covert beauty filters and air brushing. 

After the year that was 2020, the turnover of the clock on 31st December probably felt like a release. Even if you knew that in reality, very little was going to be different on 1st January 2021, it felt important to hold onto the idea that the new year could be, and must be, better than the last.
So it’s hardly surprising that the siren song of New Year's resolutions called to many of us more loudly than ever. According to a recent YouGov survey, one in five Britons intended to make a New Year’s resolution in 2021, with resolutions being most popular among people aged 18 to 24 (38%). The survey found that a couple of the most common resolutions are towards making positive change in the world around us (raising money for charity or volunteering) but given how much the world around us feels out of our grasp, especially now, it’s hardly surprising that the most popular resolutions are around self-improvement. You can’t impact the government’s pandemic strategy but you can control what you do to and for yourself.

Hospital admissions for anorexia rose 9% between 2018/19 and 2019/20 while bulimia rose 15%.

An urgent review is needed to ensure social media companies are restricting harmful content being placed online in the wake of a dramatic rise in the number of young women suffering from an eating disorder, a leading Yorkshire academic has warned.

New data from The Health Survey for England uncovered that 19% of women screened positive for a possible eating disorder when questioned about their relationship with food
According to charity Beat, eating disorders are complex mental illnesses that can involve restricting or avoiding food, bulimia, binge eating, and anorexia. As with all experiences, eating disorders exist on a scale but, wherever someone sits on that scale, it’s still vital to take their experiences seriously.

A doubling of urgent referrals for children with eating disorders combined with a squeeze on services caused by the pandemic has led to an increase in waiting times, with some patients sent hundreds of miles to obtain help, psychiatrists have said.

A staggering one in five women in England may have an eating disorder, according to the NHS Health Survey for England. The figures for 2019 are far higher than those in a comparable survey in 2007.

From agrarian revolution in Britain starting mid 17th century followed by the industrial Revolution to constitutional liberal democracies, the west led by United Kingdom and the United States of America afterwards have always led the world from the front. In technological innovations, in the aggressive foreign policies they have shaped the world and the current world order puts them at the apex. Indeed history makes it clear European civilization dwarfed others for such a long time.

BORIS Johnson has vowed to tackle obesity as part of the fight against coronavirus, after reports that he believes his weight landed him in intensive care with the disease.

The prime minister, previously a critic of the "nanny state", is said to now support a "more interventionist" approach to obesity, which is known to double a coronavirus patient's chances of being hospitalised.