Eat less, move more. The answer to tackling obesity, our most damaging health epidemic is simple, right? Except it really isnt despite the latest initiative from a born-again Prime Minister, whose personal Covid-19 experience has converted a libertarian to nannying.

With estimates suggesting that two-thirds of Britons are seriously overweight, the endless warnings, chastisements and diets are clearly not working. They do not address the greatest barrier to solving the problem: how we see ourselves.

Yes, I know the economic issue; that the poor spend a greater percentage of their earnings on food, much of which is so high in the fat, salt and sugar that contribute to obesity and the resulting Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and Covid-19 that are at least in part a result of so many of us being obese.

Whats needed is a way of getting through to our psyches, in the way we have with issues like smoking. We have all known for years that smoking kills. It still did not stop so many smokers for decades until it became socially unacceptable in so many contexts.

Sadly, obesity is not viewed in the same way yet. Despite Britain being the second most overweight nation in Europe (after Malta), there is currently still too much of the type of knee-jerk resistance to government interference that we see with face masks. We have to look at the complex, knotty issue of the balance between anti-obesity campaigning and the anti-fat-shaming lobby rather than the headline-grabbing easy win of banning junk food ads before the 9pm watershed.

Much centres on the word fat. We can scarcely use it for fear of appearing fattist. But mentioning someone has cancer, heart disease or Alzheimers is not deemed offensive. Yes, fat-shaming doesnt help. There is too much evidence that it leads only to resentment, anxiety and depression.

But too many who are overweight hide behind the observation that some cant help being fat. Many more can. The mistake is to believe in instant fixes.

We need re-education on both a personal and social level that obesity should not be a badge, but is a genuine problem, both for individuals and the NHS. We need more libertarians to have a Boris-like conversion to the nanny state.

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Obesity kills - it's important we realise this and stop making excuses - iNews