Nanny NICE

Will these nagging jobsworths ever shut up? The gang that brought you successful policies including compulsory sex ed for five year olds, alcohol lecturethons and a nationwide database of homes in case anyone might have an accident have today announced the discovery of another problem to which they are the solution.

NICE have discovered that people are less healthy if they eat unhealthy food, and healthier if they eat healthy food. Well, blow me down. If only I could stretch my chubby chip-laden hand through the directory all the way to N for Nobel, I could ensure that these in-no-way-pious-and-self-righteous geniuses got the reward they so richly deserve. "Richly" in the "amply" sense rather than "pleasantly-richly-tasty-food-like-chocolate" sense, which is naturally to be banned in due course.

Of course, those of us able to walk, talk and feed ourselves with horrid fatty junk food would never have appreciated that scoffing lard is bad for us, without the munificent wisdom of some state-appointed quangocrats to enlighten us:

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) says that unhealthy foods have wreaked a “terrible toll of ill health” on the nation and placed a “substantial” strain on the economy.

For the first time, the organisation publishes landmark guidance on how to prevent the “huge number of unnecessary deaths” from conditions such as heart disease that are linked to the consumption of ready meals and processed food.

Thank goodness for that. I mean, it takes an expert to tell us that fatty food is not as good for us as salad.

But wait - such warnings are not all they've got for us.

The guidance, which was commissioned by the Department of Health, also recommends that:

• Low-salt and low-fat foods should be sold more cheaply than their unhealthy counterparts, through the use of subsidies if necessary;

• Advertising of unhealthy foods should be banned until after 9pm and planning laws should be used to restrict the number of fast food outlets, especially near schools;

• The Common Agricultural Policy should focus more on public health, ensuring farmers are paid to produce healthier foods;

• Action should also be taken to introduce a “traffic light” food labelling system, even though the European Parliament recently voted against this;

• Local authorities must act to encourage walking and cycling and public sector caterers must provide healthier meals;

• All lobbying of the Government and its agencies by the food and drink industry should be fully disclosed.

So our Ministry of Health asks a group to tell the Ministry in suitably portentous tones what they already think, and said "guidance" will then be used as a stick to beat those of us who like chips.

Yes, that's right. Interfere with the market, curtail free speech, subsidise things, lecture and harangue and push, because we're not making valid and informed choices when we chomp on chocs - we must be too stupid to understand, and need you to tell us what to do.

Honestly...

By Alex Deane

The burger in the picture accompanying this piece was in no way sourced by google searching images. It is in fact a photograph of my desk, specifically of course 4 of the Big Brother Watch daily breakfast, which thanks to NICE we now appreciate might be a suboptimal way to start the day. Gracias, lads

Comments

[ThousandsOfMilesAway]

Interesting that 60 years of government diet advice has led directly to the obesity epidemic.

These people don't know what they are talking about - yes, burgers aren't that good for you, but low fat does NOT equal healthy. Quite the reverse in many cases.

If you really want to understand nutrition and/or lose weight I highly recommend checking out Zoe Harcombe.

[TheBigYin]

What's that ugly green think sticking out at the side? Is it lettuce??? Glad to see your taking NICE's advice and took the healthier option. lol.

[Pennee]

As someone who has struggled with their weight for a long, long time, there is one thing that I have learned. Despite government education, reading health magazines and a gym membership, I only eat well when I am motivated to do so. And that is what it takes for anyone to be healthy/loose weight and the government can't really do anything to affect my motiviation, or indeed anyone elses. The sooner they realise that the sooner they can slash the budget.

[John Page]

Actually the DoH appears to have put the boot in:

"Today's recommendations are extensive and wide ranging but it is not practical to implement certain proposals in this guidance, for example on the mandatory use of traffic lights alongside GDA in food labelling.

"It is extremely important that work by NICE is methodologically robust and includes fully workable proposals."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/10369198.stm

[Alex Deane]

Blimey. Good spot @John Page. Hope NICE reads that. You know you're out of whack when the health bureaucrats have more common sense than you do.

[Dixon of Dock Green]

What the hell has this busybodying got to do with "Health and Clinical Excellence"? I thought these namby-pamby idiots are supposed to make sure hospitals are kept clean and that third world doctors don't leave forceps in peoples stomachs?

Take that bloody great beam out of your own eye you prats before you start whingeing about the splinter in ours.

[SadButMadLad]

I agree with Dixon. They are going beyond their original remit. Encouraging councils to visit the homes of children (another one of their previous crap pronouncements) to make sure they aren't hurting themselves is not "clinical" at all.

I think it's probably because they are worried about cost cutting and want to show how good a quango they are by coming up with all this "useful" guidance.

However I think they need to learn from past issuances from other quangos - nanny state pronouncements tend to be deried and ignored. So NICE are still a waste of space. They should stick with their core work of deciding on medicines. They are duplicating the work of other quangos.

[ed]

Eliminate NICE entirely. There is a perfectly adequate organisation in Scotland. Britain is not that diverse as to need two quangos doing the same job

Learn to accept Scottish decisions on all NICE's rulings

[NeverSurrender]

@ed - "Learn to accept Scottish decisions on all NICE's rulings"
And why not have a nice deep-fried Mars bar at the same time. :-)