Education is the answer to obesity

It is tempting to assume the fight against obesity will be an easier contest. Sugar and fatty foods are not as addictive as cigarettes.

That, however, would underestimate the scale of the problem.

Half of local adults and a third of nine-year-old children are overweight or obese. Long-term that leads to complications with 5% of adults having type 2 diabetes.

That in turn means amputations (up to 17 a year) and up to 70 preventable deaths from cancer or heart problems.

But while the problem might be clear and the solution for most people is well understood (better diet, more exercise) it will take a huge societal change to get the scales moving in the right direction.

Even when the right thing is being done it is not always welcomed. Education, for example, set guidelines for schools to give pupils healthy foods. Yet three years after the rules came in its contracted food supplier still has doubts whether his business will survive if they are rigorously enforced.

The big question then is how to encourage change. Through education and knowledge or through enforcement?

Health wants to try education first and keep enforcement measures such as a sugar tax as an option of last report.

But some argue that this is the right time to get tough. People's health is suffering now and sugar taxes have been shown to work in other countries and drive down consumption. So why not pioneer it here as we did the smoking ban?

If there is a difference it is that there are no safe levels of smoking and there is no passive element to eating. People who drink the occasional harmless can of cola or eat a doughnut as a treat will not want to be penalised to help those who eat nothing but.

And what has really stopped people smoking? Is it the price or a greater understanding of the risks?