British government attempts to encourage healthy eating

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BOB MOON: The British government has launched a drive to stop obesity in Britain from reaching American proportions. The UK has launched a new, $300 million program to encourage healthy eating.

From London, Marketplace’s Stephen Beard reports.

STEPHEN BEARD: Millions of British families will be offered discounts worth at least $75 on healthy foods like whole grain rice and green beans. Fitness products are included in the government sponsored scheme. There’ll be $8 off the price of a pair of running shoes. Multi-national food companies are funding much of the drive. But the campaign group National Obesity Forum is unimpressed. It believes that after using the discounts, people will soon revert to their bad habits.

Spokesman Tam Fry says the food companies would do better to spend the money making healthier products

TAM FRY: If we had food which was without the high levels of fat, and salt, and sugar then I don’t think that we would need schemes like this in the first place because everybody would be eating food which is basically healthy.

He says 40 to 50 percents of Brits are overweight, or obese. Not quite as bad as the 75 percent figure for the U.S., but Britain is waddling in America’s wake.

In London, this is Stephen Beard for Marketplace.