Lady Nicotine and the Fat Wars

Well, whaddyaknow, turns out that a rise in obesity is one of the costs of government-sponsored attempts to make smoking tobacco less appealing. Swings and roundabouts. Acording to Chris Snowdon, a study* published in this week’s British Medical Journal reports that non-smoking women are twice as likely to be obese as smokers and three times as likely to be seriously lardy.

True, obesity is not quite as dangerous as smoking but that’s a matter of perspective. If you look at the matter from the Treasury then obesity may well be the greater problem. Since the pressure on health costs can only increase in years to come (that’s one consequence of an aging population) fat is a graver problem than tobacco, not least because there are fewer diseases that cut off the cost of fat quite as abruptly (ie, quickly and cheaply) as they do with tobacco.