KEY POINTS:
There is "no excuse" for people to be too fat, the British Conservative Party is to declare today, as it begins a drive to persuade people to live healthier lifestyles.
In a speech which points to Conservative demands for greater personal responsibility across social policy, the Tories' health spokesman Andrew Lansley was to insist that people claiming biological or environmental causes for their obesity were making excuses.
He planned to use the speech on public health to announce a string of measures to remove the "peer pressure" he claims is responsible for teenage obesity, underage sex and binge drinking.
Firms would be urged to cut the size of ready meals, while Olympic stars could be used as role models to encourage young people to live more healthily. He was to insist that the initiative is "not about telling people what to do", but would add: "Tackling the environment should not be a licence to lecture people, because they have no excuse not to exercise, or eat their fruit and vegetables."
Labour said the plans had "very little substance".
Lansley's comments on obesity echoed David Cameron's speech last month when he declared that the poor, the obese and people with drug and alcohol problems were partly to blame for their own plight.
Lansley was to say the Government must change the behaviour of millions of adults and children to "defuse the time-bomb of obesity-related ill-health".
"Tell people that biology and the environment causes obesity and they are offered the one thing we have to avoid: an excuse. As it is, people who see more fat people around them may themselves be more likely to gain weight."
Lansley insisted that a future Tory government would not "nanny" people, pledging to scrap support for "traffic light" food labelling and arguing the party would not extend a ban on junk food advertising during children's television shows. Instead, Lansley would propose a "responsibility deal" with companies to encourage firms to cut the salt, sugar and fat content of food.
- INDEPENDENT
