Britain’s Fat Fight with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (BBC1, 25 April, 9pm), got off to a sensationalist start as the TV chef launched his campaign against obesity in the UK. Its opening scenes showed kids charging around Tesco flinging crisps, Coca-Cola and chocolate into their trolley, while their parents accused big brands of outright deceit. It looked like Hugh was about to miss every single nuance buried in the nation’s rolls of fat, as he accused food and drink companies of being different from drug deals only “in that they’re operating within the law”.
But then things got interesting. The chef brought in Dr Giles Yeo to point out two social markers behind our weight gain: the arrival of Domino’s to the high street in 1985, with calorie-laden takeaways delivered to doorsteps for the first time, and the widespread adoption of the freezer. Synonymous with convenience, it led to a surge in convenient, long-life foods, preserved by ambiguous processes and loaded in salts and sugars to resurrect taste. These processes removed our bodies’ need to burn calories by digestion and we started taking in more calories than ever before.
Then Newcastle native Julie pulled up “posh” Hugh on his failure to talk meaningfully to the working classes and took him on an eye-opening trip round its estates, pointing out the lack of fruit & veg in local shops but also declining local appetites for anything green.
It was one of the multi-faceted, layered, and complex reasons behind our nation’s dangerous weight gain. By no means is the chef about to let food and drink companies off the hook - just ask WH Smith - but at least this latest campaign looks like an attempt to understand the problem from every unflattering angle.
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