you’re only going to do it when you want to. You need to be ready. When you’re wearing clothes that you feel good in, you might start to make more positive healthy choices in your life, and that might lead to weight loss. If you prevent people from buying clothes so that they have nothing nice to wear, they’re going to be socially isolated, they’re going to sit at home and eat and they’re going to get fatter. It’s not the way you’ll get people to lose weight. With regards to being healthy and overweight? I’m sorry, I don’t know who it is that said it, but you can’t be obese and healthy. With obesity, comes metabolic change and those changes are for the worst unfortunately. You may at that very moment in time be OK, you might go to your GP and your blood sugar and blood pressure might be fine, but stay like that for a year or two and those changes will start to kick in. It’s a dangerous thing to say. You have to be careful about what you say now, as people are so quick to accuse you of fat-shaming! I get accused of fat shaming all the time, because I host a TV show about weight loss. It’s a silly way of getting attention. I’ve been called misogenistic, a fat-shamer, anti-breastfeeding, you name it. It is my job as a doctor to advise people on making healthy choices. If someone goes to their GP about a cough and they point out their weight, people get angry. But if you go in with a cough, and your doctor fails to mention a suspicious looking mole on your neck, there is no difference. In exactly the same way, if someone is severely overweight or obese, it is my job to point out that this is a significant health risk and you should be doing something about it if you want to improve your health. You may have come in with a sore foot, but it’s my job to look after your whole health. Is that fat-shaming? Of course it’s not. If you feel ashamed then your society is making you feel ashamed. Fat-shaming is saying we should stop selling plus sized clothes. Look at the adverts that are being defaced recently, what is the difference between that and celebrating a plus-sized woman? Come on, it’s the same thing! It’s just dressed up in different language. Someone has got to say it and as long as the debate is being had it’s OK. Childhood obesity is a huge issue, with many reports suggesting that a very high percentage of parents are unable to recognise whether their child is overweight or not. What advice would you give to parents on what they can do to tackle the issue in the earliest stages of development? We have completely lost touch with what a normal weight is, especially in children. In a child of a healthy weight, you should be able to see it’s ribs. A child where you can’t see any underlying anatomy at all because they’re covered in a layer of fat, is an overweight child, and I’m afraid that’s the case for most kids that you see these days. However, tell a mother that, and they get terribly upset, but it’s my job to tell the truth. I do think that there are better ways of saying these things, and there are many GPs who do it very well and some who can be very insensitive. I certainly think there is room for improvement with all of us in how we go about addressing these issues, because it is an attack on how you look, and you do need to be sensitive to that. However, that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be said. Fat parents tend to breed fat children and fat children will find it much harder to keep the weight off. This is where education is very important, because if we stop producing overweight kids, then we have almost broken the cycle. What are some of the most common myths and misconceptions you hear from people who want to lose weight? I prefer to call them truisms rather than myths. What I always say to people is that it’s so much easier than what it needs to be; most people do too much too quickly. They feel they need to radically overhaul everything and cut out all of the bad stuff but it’s not sustainable because they start eating things that they’re really not used to eating. It doesn’t go down very well and they find it tough, and start craving the foods they used to eat until eventually they slip back into their old eating habits. If you start to make small changes like leaving mayo out of your lunchtime sandwich or introducing more greens and cutting down on pastry, these little things add up over time to make a big difference. The best type of diet to be on is one that your body doesn’t notice that it’s on. That is perfectly possible, you don’t need to lose weight in three months, there is no rush. I would advise no more than a pound or two a week; anything more aggressive than that is going to lead to problems, and avoid anything like diet pills or potions. Another important truism is, the key to weight loss is diet. Not exercise. It is your most important tool. Exercise comes into play for maintaining weight loss. But the way to actually lose weight is through diet. Abs are made in the kitchen and not in the gym! Overall what do we, as a nation, need to do to ensure a healthier future for both us and the future generations? Educate, legislate, advertise and operate. Those four things, are going to be the key to solving the obesity problem. Photograph: iStock 14
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