A salt and sugar tax might help, but it won’t get to the root of why so many of us are overweight

The question is not whether the aims of the National Food Strategy are admirable or not. It is whether this is the most effective way to tackle what we should all acknowledge is a serious problem, writes Hamish McRae

‘It is not clear that diet is the whole problem, though it is part of it’ (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Most Britons are undoubtedly a bit too tubby, and we do not eat as healthily as we should. But does this mean that we follow the lead of a government led by a less-than-svelte prime minister and a commission headed by a former fast-food restaurateur who acknowledges that his weight “oscillates between the high end of healthy weight and the low end of obese”?

Before you dismiss the latest report of the National Food Strategy, calling for a salt and sugar tax as one more example of grandees calling for people to “do as I say, not as I do”, stand back and acknowledge that there is a problem. Almost the entire developed world is not eating as healthily as it should, or indeed as it did half a century ago. While the UK is not alone in facing problems of public health as a result of its citizens’ dietary choices, it is towards the podgy end of the pack. So, what’s to be done?

The National Food Strategy has some answers. The report has been headed by Henry Dimbleby, co-founder of the Leon Restaurant Group which was sold for a reported £100m earlier this year. There are 71 pages of recommendations, including footnotes.