New News on Obesity

The UK has decided that "Obesity 'not individuals' fault.'"

Or at least so says the BBC, in the title linked article. The article goes on to explain:

Individuals can no longer be held responsible for obesity and government must act to stop Britain "sleepwalking" into a crisis, a report has concluded.
The largest ever UK study into obesity, backed by government and compiled by 250 experts, said excess weight was now the norm in our "obesogenic" society.

Dramatic and comprehensive action was required to stop the majority of us becoming obese by 2050, they said.

[Side note: Umm...isn't there the chance these standards are slightly off? I read recently that the WHO lowered the threshholds for overweight and obese in the USA after comparing our standards to that of other countries. But how do we start comparing Americans to other countries? I was reading a manga recently in which one of the title characters was an abnormally tall girl. Her height? 5"7.]

Obesity, the authors concluded, was an inevitable consequence of a society in which energy-dense and cheap foods, labour-saving devices, motorised transport and sedentary work were rife.