Coronavirus: Obesity's defining moment?

The Food Chain

• Episode: Coronavirus: Obesity's defining moment?
• Website: The Food Chain
• Feed URL: https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p028z2z0.rss
• Duration: 00:27:16
• Published: 2020-09-24 01:00

Emily Thomas asks whether the coronavirus pandemic will turn out to be the defining moment in the fight against obesity. Will we see governments take radical action, now that the pandemic has turned the spotlight on this growing global problem? And why hasn’t the pandemic made most of us eat more healthily?

Even experts have been surprised by just how strong an impact obesity has been found to have on the risks of coronavirus. We hear from Professor Barry Popkin, of the University of North Carolina, who led a major study into the relationship between the two. He tells us he’s worried that food companies are using the pandemic to push ultra processed food on low-income populations.

Professor Corinna Hawkes, of City, University of London, explains how obesity policy became personal in the UK after Boris Johnson caught the virus.

And Jacqueline Bowman-Busato, Policy Lead for the European Association for the Study of Obesity, tells us how her own experience of living with obesity has led her to lobby for changes in how obesity is viewed and treated. She says the pandemic has provided a much needed wake up call on a neglected and misunderstood public health issue.

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(Picture: Fat cells, Credit: Getty Images/BBC)