It’s You and I

Alice Miles reflects on government campaigns to get us to change our habits:

They’re not talking about me, are they, in that fatty campaign thingy, the one done by the Wallace & Gromit people? I’m not obese. This new government weight campaign, the one with the Stone Age people modernising and growing flabby, is for the fatties, isn’t it, and we all know who they are. It’s not going to work either, is it? Because the very people the campaign is aimed at will ignore it, won’t they?

Those people being?

Well, yes, probably. Because the people it is aimed at really is you and me. Public-health campaigns such as Change4Life, launched last week, have the greatest effect if a large number of low-risk people change their behaviour; far greater than if the smaller number of high-risk people do. So, yes, it is you and me they are talking to.

Invariably. As is usual, these self righteous, self-appointed guardians of our wellbeing are seeking to make you and I change our eating habits. Cut down on fat, cut down on salt or whatever is the latest bogeyman du jour. This, despite their proclamations about what is bad for us having no scientific basis – take units of alcohol, for example; plucked from the ether, salt being bad for us has been thoroughly debunked.

Of course they do have an effect, although not always the desired one. My mother in law was bemused when Mrs L and I shook an extra sprinkle of salt onto our meal “for Dawn”. Therein lies the problem for the new Puritans; those of us who can see through them are the very people they are seeking to change and we treat their entreaties with the contempt they deserve. Let me say it plain, I will not change my lifestyle one whit. If I want to eat red meat, I will. If I want to sprinkle lots of salt on it, I will. If I want to lounge around after my meal, I will. In short, I will live my life as I see fit, not as politicians wish me to. It is my life, not theirs and I will decide how I will live it and if my choices cause it to be shorter than might otherwise be the case, then that is my lookout.

That brings its own problems: while the benefit to society as a whole if lots of low-risk people eat slightly better is large in terms of savings for the NHS in future, the benefit to the individual is small. Which is why nearly all public health campaigns fail; and why I suspect that this one, all £75 million of it, will as well.

And so it should. Miles quotes David Spiegelhalter who calculated that following government advice on drinking increases the individual’s life expectancy by 20 seconds for each pint forgone. In conclusion he decided:

“individuals receiving that advice may, equally reasonably, choose to ignore it”.

Really? I wonder why?

We’re tricky like that, we are – and we hate being told what to do by ministers.

That is because ministers have no right whatsoever to lecture us about how to live our lives, because – and it may come as a surprise to them (and Miles) – it is none of their damned business.

As the Government admitted four years ago, after a mammoth consultation exercise to decide what to put in a White Paper on public health, the overwhelming message was: go away.

Indeed – and quickly, please. I’d have, perhaps put it slightly more bluntly just to underline the point, but “go away” will suffice.

Unfortunately, they won’t go away. They realise that we won’t “do anything” about our lifestyles, so despite having been given an unequivocal message, government decided that “something must be done” and so we get Change4Life. If we don’t we will all become clinically obese. We won’t, of course. Some will and some won’t – it all depends on the balance between the calories you burn and the calories you consume. I eat as I please and yet I do not put on weight. This means that I burn off that excess. I will not become clinically obese if I do not follow government advice and I have no intention of following government advice.

Alice Miles, having decided that this is doomed to failure has her own solution:

When this campaign fails, and I hope it doesn’t but I think that it will, ministers should be ready to legislate to force a change in behaviour. Smoking only dipped sharply when it was banned in public places.

So, having acknowledged that we do not want government in our faces telling us how to live, Miles’ solution is for…

Oh, fuck it.