Milking the fat

As most of you are well aware the government is making a bit of a ham fisted attempt to halt the rising obesity epidemic, 372 million squid is being frittered away on gimmicks to pretend that the government gives a shit. After all it's much cheaper to throw away a few million on cheap gimmicks, than adapt all one's policies to fight the battle in an all encompassing holistic manner.

Would selling the school playing fields and replacing them with a healthy snack vending machine be seen as good for 'healthy living' by this government? You see what I'm getting at.

The end result of this shoddy policy making is that PCTs will be wasting yet more cash on schemes with either no or very scanty evidence behind them. 'Paying the obese to lose weight' is part the government's amazingly naive strategy. It is the genius of ideas like this that have to be seen to be believed.

The obese are being taken for a ride and the tax payer is also being ripped of at the same time; various profiteering companies are allowed to freely peddle their useless pap, and it's all ok because it's all in the name of a good cause. It would be stupid to use proper evidence to base anti-obesity strategies upon, this government would much prefer to fritter away millions on gimmicks and empower bureaucrats with no medical knowledge in PCTs to waste a few more million pounds. To effectively tackle obesity the government would have to remove itself from the back pocket of big business, grow some testacles, become honest and act in the interests of the electorate. That won't bloody well happen, will it?