Ross Clark Ross Clark

Shrinking pizzas and pies isn’t the way to tackle obesity

From 30 March next year, of course, we will no longer be subject to all those silly EU laws on bent bananas (which was genuine, not a myth), toasters, balloons and all the rest. Instead we will be able to concentrate on passing our own good old British silly laws.

Even the European Commission never came up with the idea of limiting pies to 695 calories. So bravo, then, to Public Health England for having the imagination to out-Brussels Brussels. Today, the quango unveils its latest strategy in fighting obesity: regulating portion sizes. As well as regulating pies, the proposed rules include a maximum calorie count for pizzas of 928 calories.

I struggle often to figure out what goes on inside a regulator’s head. How do you come up with such a precise figure. Why not 927 calories? There will presumably be a few extra fatties waddling round the country in a few years’ time thanks to that extra fragment of mozzarella.

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