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Tax Junk Food for the Sake of Our Children

Posted on: Friday, 1 July 2005, 12:00 CDT

Celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson yesterday used a major health conference in Wales to call for a tax on all junk food. He issued the demand as he urged all parents to regain control of their children's diets.

To combat the obesity epidemic the television star and father-of- two said parents had to ignore the 'guilt factor' and lay down firm ground rules over what and when youngsters eat.

He also suggested introducing a tax on 'unnecessary' convenience foods to raise money to pay for a free and compulsory school meals programme as he attacked a culture which prizes cheapness over quality.

At the Heart UK conference at the University of Glamorgan, Worrall Thompson, right, said , 'Obesity is a ticking time-bomb and it is just about to explode.

'We have to look at prevention rather than cure and we need to embrace old-fashioned food values - to look backwards to go forwards.

'If we eat properly and look after our bodies, our bodies will look after us.'

Outlining his recipe for fighting the growing obesity problem, he said tackling the problem in children, before they started to get fat, was the key. That meant starting young - alarming latest research from University of Wales, Swansea shows that 8% of girls and 5% of boys in Wales are already obese by age five.

And doctors warn they are seeing more and more children and teenagers with type II diabetes.

Worrall Thompson, who describes himself as a 'little dictator' in his own home, also declared war on high-fat, high-salt, high-sugar foods branding them 'unnecessary'.

The 54-year-old award-winning chef said, 'The thing about children is that we have to regain control of them. Education is key and it has to be done not just by telling them, but by showing them.

'Jamie Oliver started it, and he has done great work, but, unfortunately, that's not the end of it.

'By giving schools more money, they can buy even bigger Turkey Twizzlers.

'If I was the Prime Minister, Education Minister or Health Secretary, I'd be introducing compulsory free school meals and I'd pay for it by taxing unnecessary foods - we spend pounds 2 a day on snack foods.

'We have got to the stage when we have to tell children what to eat and we have to have compulsory free schools meals which don't give children a choice of what to eat.

'I'd lock the school gates between 9.30am and 3.30pm and not let the kids out so they couldn't go to the sweet shop or takeaway.

'Daily exercise would be a compulsory measure in schools, even if it was only 20 minutes, and I'd also have yearly medicals for children, including tests for cholesterol and body mass index, and send reports to their parents.

'I believe parents would want schools to take more control of their children, but we've become too PC.'

The chef and author, who swam the English Channel aged 16, said that every secondary schoolchild should leave school knowing how to cook. Rather than just learning about the nutrients in an egg, they should know what to do with it.

Once famous for his love of fattening food, Worrall Thompson has lost two-and-a-half stone since January, in a bid to improve his health after he was diagnosed with Syndrome X - the precursor to diabetes - three years ago.

The threat to his own health and concern over the standard of food eaten in society in the midst of an obesity epidemic, instilled in him a passion to change attitudes towards the way we eat.

Latest figures show six out of 10 men in Wales and almost five out of 10 women are now overweight or obese.

Addressing patients at a healthy eating workshop during the conference, Worrall Thompson, who has won the Meilleur Ouvrier de Grande Bretagne (MOGB) - the chefs' Oscar - added, 'Food is a problem in this country. Everything is getting cheaper. We have to learn that we have to pay for our food.

'After the [Second World] war we spent 33% of our disposable income on food. Today we're down to just 12%.

'Take hydrogenated vegetable fats. We see the word vegetable and we think it's fine, but not many people know that it pushes up cholesterol levels.

'And sugar is one of the most dangerous things we can eat. We can get all the energy we need from other carbohydrates.': FROM PAGE 2: Top tips for a healthy diet:So how can you improve your and your children's diets? Here are Antony Worrall Thompson's tips: Limit red meat to once a week - but buy the best available; Eat organic fish twice a week; If cooking a casserole, make it the day before and put it in the fridge overnight, the fat can then be skimmed off the top;

Don't let your children walk past the fruit bowl without eating a piece of fruit from it;

Ensure you and your children eat a proper breakfast. The Worrall Thompson household have muesli twice a week and the chef's two children do not eat sugary cereals such as Coco Pops or Pop Tarts;

Eat meals together as a family. And eat the same food, as it will help the children to trust you more;

The occasional ready meal or burger is acceptable, but not as part of a daily diet;

Adopt the principles of the GI diet, as eating slow-release foods will ensure you feel full throughout the day and maintain energy levels; Eat locally-grown and organic produce.

Source: Western Mail

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