The Elephant in the Room

Virtually all health policy acknowledges that ultimately the individual chooses what they eat and if they exercise. As such they have responsibility for their own health. However, health policy may be viewed as failing, as the incidence of obesity has increased continually for the last half century. There is little evidence that health policy has facilitated the changes in behaviour needed to prevent the growth of obesity. Therefore, rather than concentrating on calories in food, health policy should direct its attention to the individual customer, encouraging them to change after indicating how this could be done. It could be pointed out that approaches such as dieting have failed, after advocating alternative behaviour that stands a better chance of success.