From ‘stay at home’ to ‘on the bike’! Sir Chris urges Britons to fight obesity by cycling

Sir Chris Whitty said today that Brits need to cycle to combat rising obesity rates.

Britain’s chief health officer has warned that many aspects of public health have “slipped and even regressed” over the past two years, including obesity levels.

A quarter of 10-year-olds were obese in the first year of the pandemic, compared to a fifth in 2019, according to data from NHS England.

And three-quarters of adults in the country were overweight or obese before Covid struck.

Sir Chris said that while exercise is “one of the most effective ways to improve health”, less than a quarter of a generation of British grandparents pedal.

He said active transportation, such as cycling to work, adds activities to people’s normal routines.

Sir Chris said at the Local Government Association’s public health conference: “I think I have a feeling it’s going to be really hard to get people on bikes, for example.

But if you go back to the 1950s and 1960s, the percentage of people who cycled across the country for both work and pleasure was extremely high.”

Sir Chris pointed to data from the Health Foundation which showed that walking or cycling more across England could lead to a significant reduction in premature deaths.

Department of Transport data highlighted by Sir Chris showed that in 1949 people in Britain had traveled nearly 15 billion miles by bicycle.

But since then, wages have dropped significantly as Brits cycled just 5 billion km in 2019.

Sir Chris said obesity rates are rising across the country, despite efforts to promote walking and cycling during the pandemic.

Many areas of public health “have flooded or deteriorated in the last two years, and we need to take them seriously.”

And obesity in the UK, especially among children, has “worsened significantly” over time, he warned.

Boris Johnson has announced that he is taking an obesity measure in 2020, following an almost deadly Covid attack that he attributes to being overweight.

As part of the plan, new laws restricting the supply of high-fat, sugary and salt-rich foods in medium and large-sized stores are expected to go into effect in October.

Additionally, junk food giants will no longer be able to advertise online and on TV before 9 PM in January 2023.

Sir Chris says, “Exercise is one of the most effective ways to improve health, whether it’s cardiovascular disease, cancer or mental health.

“And active transport is a particularly important way to do that because it integrates it into the normal routine of people’s daily lives rather than being seen as a stand-alone thing.”

He said the cycling statistics of the 1950s showed that “the idea that England is a country where you can’t really cycle is clearly false”.

And Sir Chris pointed to data from the Health Foundation showing that walking or cycling more across England could lead to a significant reduction in premature deaths.

“What happened during the Covid crisis is that we have seen many local authorities being extremely creative in how they are making it easier for people to walk and cycle to work, shops and entertainment. People are getting off public transport where they can pass or contaminate Covid.

But it shows what can be done and there is a lot that can be done all over the country.”

Sir Chris also acknowledged that other public health issues such as air pollution have improved during the lockdown.

The chief medical officer will address air pollution in his annual report this year, but declined to link the auto and tobacco industries.

He said: “People must be able to move, and the auto industry is an important part of that, nobody has to smoke, and the cigarette industry essentially profits by killing its citizens.

The correct number of cigarettes in the UK is zero. And the number of correct cars in the UK is certainly not zero.”