Another day, another initiative to combat obesity. Sometimes feels as if we're fighting a losing battle against the bulging waistlines of the UK population. Same old advice, same old results.
I therefore empathise with the reaction of Lib Dems health spokesman Norman Lamb to the government's newly launched ‘healthy towns' scheme, which is part of its wider Change4Life campaign, announced in September. Under ‘healthy towns', Dudley, Halifax, Sheffield, Tower Hamlets in London, Thetford in Norfolk, Middlesbrough, Manchester, Tewkesbury and Portsmouth will share £30m of funding to develop innovative schemes related to cycling, walking, healthy eating and green spaces. The areas will all match the government funding.
Mr Lamb describes ‘healthy towns' as ‘at risk of being yet another time-wasting gimmick', while shadow health secretary Andew Lansley warns that it is ‘typical of a short-sighted approach to tackling public health issues', comparing it with the now defunct Health Action Zones.
And it seems they not alone in being cynical. Online news stories about ‘healthy towns', announced on Monday, have unleashed a plethora of furious comments. Apparently, people are tired of hearing about ‘new' ways to tackle the same problems.
Those who are within a healthy weight range are fed up that so much time and money is expended on a problem that they feel is within each individual's capacity to control. In a challenging financial climate they are angry that yet another £30m is being spent on ‘fatties, with zero self-control' (I quote, don't shoot the messenger).
Examples are as follows (not all of these are from the Daily Mail!):
‘Nice one. I'm going to start putting on weight right now in time for the handouts.'
‘So those of us who try our best to eat healthily get nothing as usual.'
‘Nothing but leftist, trendy bribery'
‘These people don't need £30m of ‘support' or ‘education'. There is nothing they don't know already'
This ‘sheer venom' (to quote an overweight respondent), poured forth on the forums, reflects a growing intolerance towards fat people which increases every time the government spends taxpayers' money on new ways to tackle the rising tide of obesity.
In the case of ‘healthy towns', most of the criticism is targeted at a project in Manchester upon which much of the news coverage has focused. Called ‘Points4Life', this is a loyalty scheme to reward people with free activities or healthy food when they take exercise.
To an extent, I can identify with the critics. I'm not keen on the idea of ‘rewarding' people for looking after their own health, albeit with free activities (ie more exercise!) and healthy food. It is a little patronising, smacks of the nanny state and sends out the wrong message: people should be helped to help themselves, not necessarily rewarded for doing so. They will be rewarded, in any case, with better health and a trimmer waistline.
This approach angers people who feel they are already looking after themselves and receiving nothing back from the State.
By contrast, I whole-heartedly believe that the secret of success is to make being healthy easy. If you put barriers in people's way, they will simply go back the way they came or find an easy way of going round them, they won't necessarily rise to new challenges. Therefore, I love Tower Hamlet's award scheme to encourage local businesses to sell healthy food. If healthy options are readily available in most shops and cafes, and clearly labelled as such, people have fewer excuses for ignoring them.
Likewise, I'm in favour of Sheffield's plans to make the city more breastfeeding-friendly and Thetford's ‘cycle-recyle' scheme to encourage people to buy and maintain bikes. How many people consider cycling to work, or simply for fun, but lack the encouragement from their family and friends or do not know how to maintain their bikes?
Schemes need to make practical and economic sense, just like Halifax's ‘grow-your-own fruit and veg' - which appeals because of its health benefits, while also making perfect sense on the financial front - and innovations they should capture the imagination: Portsmouth's signage to help walkers, runners and cyclists time their progress encourages (healthy) competition against oneself and other people.
Projects must be tailored to a range of demographics. As one of our GP advisers recently stressed, there is little point in giving people advice that is unsuited to their personal circumstances.
He had been struggling to explain to a group GP registrars the need for health professionals (and ministers, when dreaming up innovations) to put themselves in their patients' positions, trying on their shoes (figuratively speaking) and letting go of the values and assumptions that they themselves hold dear.
So suggesting to a single mother of four, who works part-time, that she join an expensive gym is an unrealistic proposition. However, transforming parks into family health zones (as planned in Dudley) provides an ‘on-the-doorstep' facility that the whole family can enjoy, while healthy ‘breakfast clubs' encourage healthy eating but in an appealingly sociable way.
Call me naïve, but some of these projects have piqued my interest just a little (in principle, at least) despite my initial scepticism. And, since the ‘healthy towns' scheme is backed by £30 million that can only be accessed through innovation, I hope that it will encourage local people to come up with some long-lasting, genuinely unusual solutions to a problem that does need to be tackled, whether we like it or not.