LONDON — Britain will crack down on junk food advertising and introduce calorie counts on menus in an effort to tackle obesity and ease the pressure on the country’s National Health Service amid the coronavirus pandemic, the government said on Monday.
For the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, the intersection of obesity and the coronavirus is personal. Mr. Johnson was, by his own admission, “way overweight” when he was admitted to the hospital after becoming ill with Covid-19 this year, and his health deteriorated to such an extent that at one point he needed intensive care.
Studies have linked obesity to a greater risk of serious illness or death from Covid-19, and Mr. Johnson, writing in the British newspaper The Daily Express, described his time in hospital as a “wake-up call.”
“We all put things off — I know I have,” Mr. Johnson wrote. “I’ve wanted to lose weight for ages, and like many people I struggle with my weight.”
“I go up and down, but during the whole coronavirus epidemic and when I got it, too, I realized how important it is not to be overweight,” he added.
As part of the government’s new obesity strategy, advertisements for any food high in fat, sugar or salt will be banned on television and online until 9 p.m. to avoid hours when children are most likely to see them. There will also be a consultation on whether Britain should entirely ban online ads for junk food.
All large restaurants and cafes will be required to add a calorie count to their menus, and the government will look into adding calorie labels to alcoholic drinks.
Promotional offers like “buy one, get one free” on fatty or sugary foods will also be prohibited.
Obesity in Britain has long been cited as a growing problem and as a drain on the N.H.S., and the country is usually near the top of lists ranking Europe’s fattest countries.
Government statistics show almost two-thirds of adults in England are overweight or obese. The World Health Organization estimates that about 39 percent of adults worldwide are overweight and that around 13 percent are obese.
More than 45,000 people in Britain have died from the coronavirus. Nearly 8 percent of Covid-19 patients in intensive care units have been morbidly obese, the British government said, even though morbidly obese people account for only 2.9 percent of the general population.
Mr. Johnson said in a video posted on Twitter on Monday that he had lost more than 14 pounds since his time in the hospital.
The Coronavirus Outbreak ›
Frequently Asked Questions
Updated July 27, 2020
-
Should I refinance my mortgage?
- It could be a good idea, because mortgage rates have never been lower. Refinancing requests have pushed mortgage applications to some of the highest levels since 2008, so be prepared to get in line. But defaults are also up, so if you’re thinking about buying a home, be aware that some lenders have tightened their standards.
-
What is school going to look like in September?
- It is unlikely that many schools will return to a normal schedule this fall, requiring the grind of online learning, makeshift child care and stunted workdays to continue. California’s two largest public school districts — Los Angeles and San Diego — said on July 13, that instruction will be remote-only in the fall, citing concerns that surging coronavirus infections in their areas pose too dire a risk for students and teachers. Together, the two districts enroll some 825,000 students. They are the largest in the country so far to abandon plans for even a partial physical return to classrooms when they reopen in August. For other districts, the solution won’t be an all-or-nothing approach. Many systems, including the nation’s largest, New York City, are devising hybrid plans that involve spending some days in classrooms and other days online. There’s no national policy on this yet, so check with your municipal school system regularly to see what is happening in your community.
-
Is the coronavirus airborne?
- The coronavirus can stay aloft for hours in tiny droplets in stagnant air, infecting people as they inhale, mounting scientific evidence suggests. This risk is highest in crowded indoor spaces with poor ventilation, and may help explain super-spreading events reported in meatpacking plants, churches and restaurants. It’s unclear how often the virus is spread via these tiny droplets, or aerosols, compared with larger droplets that are expelled when a sick person coughs or sneezes, or transmitted through contact with contaminated surfaces, said Linsey Marr, an aerosol expert at Virginia Tech. Aerosols are released even when a person without symptoms exhales, talks or sings, according to Dr. Marr and more than 200 other experts, who have outlined the evidence in an open letter to the World Health Organization.
-
What are the symptoms of coronavirus?
- Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.
-
Does asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 happen?
- So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “very rare,” but she later walked back that statement.
The Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper, reported that the prime minister weighed 245 pounds when he was hospitalized in April. Even with his recent slimming, Mr. Johnson, who is about 5 feet 10 inches tall, would still rank as obese, according to an N.H.S. calculator, though the prime minister said he had only just started concentrating on building his fitness and losing weight.
The wide-ranging measures announced on Monday are a change in tack for Mr. Johnson, who last year described a levy on sugary drinks as “sin stealth taxes” and warned of the “continuing creep of the nanny state.”
Professor Parveen Kumar, a spokeswoman for the British Medical Association, which represents doctors, said in a statement on Monday that the strategy “could go a long way in kick-starting a health revolution for the nation.”
But the measures did not receive such a warm welcome from the food and retail industry. Tim Rycroft, the chief operating officer at the Food and Drink Federation, a group representing manufacturers in the sector, called the plans a “punishing blow” for companies that had been “heralded by government for feeding the nation during the Covid crisis.”
The federation said that, while it supported the government’s push for Britain to become healthier, the proposed policies had been shown to be ineffective and would serve only to raise prices.
"lose" - Google News
July 27, 2020 at 08:41PM
https://ift.tt/3hK59Z9
U.K.'s New Coronavirus Tactic: Urge Britons to Lose Weight - The New York Times
"lose" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3fa3ADu https://ift.tt/2VWImBB
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "U.K.'s New Coronavirus Tactic: Urge Britons to Lose Weight - The New York Times"
Post a Comment