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Combating Obesity

The hon. Gentleman is right about fat. Salt in itself does not cause obesity—it can cause other problems, such as high blood pressure, and it has a significantly damaging effect on health. Fat is the main problem because it is the most calorie-dense food. It has approximately nine calories per gram, whereas carbohydrate and protein have approximately four to five calories per gram. Fat is, therefore, almost twice as calorie-dense as carbohydrate and protein. Anything people can do to switch from fat to carbohydrate will reduce their calorie intake. It is difficult to determine the scale of the problem in terms of what people are eating simply because it is hard to measure what people eat outside the home. Many surveys ask what food people have eaten and bought in the supermarket, but that ignores the bag of crisps, the bag of sweets and so on. Although we have labelling on foods bought in a supermarket, there is no such requirement for food in a restaurant. Many restaurants simply do not give information about the calories in their foods. When I tackled McDonald’s about the matter, it said that the information was available if one looked for it and that it was also on the website. However, people queuing to buy a Big Mac are not simultaneously checking the website to find out the number of calories it contains. Some fast-food outlets and restaurants provide such information, but it is not uniformly available. If one goes out for a curry, one has no idea how much fat, salt and sugar and how many calories it contains. It is therefore almost impossible to measure calorie intake because the information for reaching a conclusion is unavailable.