Obesity: How to balance the individual and the state?

There are few who would disagree that Britain is sitting on a potential timebomb of health problems, especially on the issue of obesity. Current proposals for a "Minister for Fat People" are however not going to resolve the problem. Such a scheme is little more than a headline-grabbing piece of spin to make it look like something is being done.

The problem of growing obesity, whether we like it or not, has the potential to impact on areas of society other than the headline grabbing "healthcare cost". It might sound silly, but think of the costs involved for public transport to allow for ever-growing backsides. Putting it simply, there is a problem, and it does need to be tackled.

The question though is how do you address it without becoming a coercive nanny? Is there a non-statist approach? Can a balance be struck between the liberty to be fat on the one hand, and a desire for people to be healthy on the other?

It seems to me that where the balance must be struck is in schools, and the problem can be tackled in two very simple ways. Firstly, we should introduce compulsory cooking lessons back into schools. I'm not talking about making fairy cakes, but genuine cooking lessons where kids make a small meal consisting of fresh ingredients. If we teach kids how to cook from as early as it is possible then the likelihood of them reverting to the freezer and oven for everything in later life ought to reduce a little.

Second, we should apply the same health checkups that we apply to growing infants and make them compulsory in schools. They don't need to be monthly, but they should be at least yearly, with a doctor who works specifically with schools. If kids are starting to look like they are getting stupidly fat then a doctor can be there to at least tell them what is going to happen to them over time if they do not make changes. Frankness and honesty by doctors is the key here. They must not pull their punches.

I don't expect this sort of thing to have guaranteed results of course. For a start, teaching kids to cook properly will not make everyone instantly thin and healthy. However, as the fat tongued Jamie Oliver discovered, half the problem with the youngsters today is that they simply don't like the "look" of foods and shun them instantly. If we want the kids to not eat the crap, then we have to make them aware of what the non-crap is, and they mustn’t be afraid to eat it. Knowing how to cook it is an obvious step in that process.

The same sort of thing is true for health checkups. Clearly there will always be some kids that will not stay thin, that is nature acting out its course. The problem of obesity today though is not about those few, it is about the increasing numbers overall. Given that there should be nothing objectionable about monitoring the health of pupils for the benefit of the pupil as a compulsory action.

The purpose of the monitoring is to instil a culture of awareness about health in our kids that ought to produce measurable long-term benefits. By removing coercion on the child to correct problems and aiming instead to make them aware of their health we create a balance between the state being “involved” on the one hand, and the individual child’s liberty to eat turkey twizzlers on the other.

When it comes to leaving school the option could be offered of yearly health-checks with a doctor. That is to say something which they sign into (and can sign out of at any time) so they receive a letter like one would for the service of their car once a year inviting them to for a health-checkup. The Government has already tried to implement the notion of yearly checkups, but the problem is that without the culture of health awareness existing in schools many people simply don’t bother.

There are of course some who might see this sort of action as social engineering. However, as long as there is no coercion for people to "change their ways" then such a charge is misplaced. There is nothing wrong with educating our kids to be aware of (a) what they eat and (b) their long-term health. Individuals should be free to be fat, but that should not preclude trying to educate them not to be.