Excessive food supply creates social, medical and environmental problems. It's time to end the culture of far too much choice

The Foresight report on obesity published last month should end the yah-boo debates about whether rising obesity is due to food or lack of exercise. It's both. Take a look at the spaghetti-like systems graphic at the centre of the Foresight report. Many factors, seemingly reasonable on their own, contribute to a collective lunacy in which we put our bodies under strains they were never designed for during evolution. Storing fat was useful millennia ago, but not today.

The chief scientist adviser's report means governments can no longer deny the big picture. Rightly, Sir David King drew parallels with climate change. Minor policy tweaks or technological fixes here or there are highly unlikely to have the desired effect. Structural problems require structural solutions.

The avalanche of high-calorie foods and soft drinks, and the creation of environments that stop us building exercise into daily lives, must be phased out. With oil prices over $90 a barrel and food the biggest source of CO2, the 20th-century definition of 'efficiency' needs overhauling.

This week's launch of the World Cancer Research Fund's huge, five-year review of evidence on diet, physical activity and cancer adds fuel to this policy fire. More extensive and systematic than its predecessor report 10 years ago, it underlines how diets have to change to protect against cancer. With attention on obesity and heart disease, it's easy to forget that many cancers are linked to diet and exercise.

The good news is that evidence is strengthening that we can prevent, not just treat, cancers, and some more than others. As with obesity, it means big change. Besides food miles, consider miles of shelves groaning with choice! Our bodies don't need this. Nine billion people cannot be fed by this Western super-abundance model. The future points to simplicity, not excess. Less choice, not more. Vegetables and salads, not meat. Seasonality, not all-year-round foods. Biking or walking to shops, not cars. Cooking not watching cooks on TV.

The meat question is important. I understand the case for using uplands for meat production, but using prime lowlands for either meat or, worse, growing grains to feed meat is folly. The 2006 FAO report has opened up this issue, showing how meat production adds to climate change. The WCRF report adds one more piece to the emerging policy jigsaw. Higher meat consumption adds health risks to environmental ones.n

Tim Lang, professor of food policy, City University

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