Boris Johnson’s former food tsar has launched an attack on Rishi Sunak’s smoking ban, saying it is “odd” to prioritise tackling cigarettes over junk food, as health leaders pile pressure on the prime minister to do more to address the growing obesity crisis.
Henry Dimbleby told The Independent that smoking is “far less” of a health issue than a poor diet, adding that smoking rates among young people are already “in freefall”.
The celebrity chef and founder of the Leon restaurant chain said that whatever government is in power in 10 years’ time will be “crippled” by the obesity crisis, and called on the prime minister to do more to tackle the issue.
NHS bosses and a former Tory health minister are among a chorus of voices urging Mr Sunak to do more to curb junk food, which they say is fuelling an obesity epidemic.
It comes after Mr Sunak used his Conservative Party conference speech to announce a proposal that would effectively ban cigarettes for anyone now aged 14 or under, by raising the age at which it is legal to purchase cigarettes by one year every year.
Mr Dimbleby told The Independent: “It seems odd to choose to go after smoking when it is already far less of a health problem than poor diet. Smoking rates are in freefall among young people.
“By 2035, the NHS is forecast to spend more treating type 2 diabetes – just one diet-related health condition – than it does today on all cancers. And it isn’t just that our diet is making us sick. It is making us poor, too. The four most common conditions keeping 2.5 million people out of work are muscular-skeletal conditions, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and mental [illness].
“Three of those are directly caused by poor diet, and one is exacerbated by it. Whatever government is in power in 10 years’ time will be crippled by the social and economic problems caused by diet-related ill health, if we don’t act now.”
Mr Dimbleby’s intervention came after an irritable Mr Sunak defended the policy in a terse interview with the BBC, insisting that cigarettes are “different to a pack of crisps or a piece of cake”.
Henry Dimbleby said poor diets are making people sick and poor as he called on Sunak to act— (Rex Features/Jason Alden)
Grilled over why he had undone plans to tackle obesity on the grounds of protecting people’s freedoms, Mr Sunak said smoking was “fundamentally different”.
The prime minister said smoking is “unequivocally the single biggest preventable cause of death, disability and illness in our society”.
But research from BioMed Central in 2021 showed that obesity now accounts for more deaths in England and Scotland than smoking among people in middle and old age. National strategies to address adiposity should be a public health priority, it said.
It follows Mr Sunak delaying measures contained in the government’s anti-obesity strategy until October 2025, saying that he “firmly believes in people’s right to choose”. The rules, which would have banned two-for-one junk-food deals, had already been pushed back and were originally planned to come into force this month.
Tam Fry, a spokesperson for the National Obesity Forum, said Mr Sunak’s smoking ban had “diverted attention from obesity, which is actually far more serious in terms of early death”.
Mr Fry told The Independent that obesity is on course to overtake smoking as the leading cause of cancer.
Asked about the difference between banning smoking and restricting fast-food consumption, Mr Fry said: “Addiction is the crux here. You can be addicted to fast food, but you’re more likely to be addicted to smoking. And once it has gripped you, a lot of people suffer tremendously from it.”
He added that both are “fundamental public health issues” that need to be tackled. But he said: “The issue of fast food, and the fact that it’s got to such a degree now that it may well overtake smoking as a cause of cancer, in my opinion is far more serious.”
Former Tory health ministerJames Bethell also urged the PM to crack down on obesity, saying the smoking ban should be a “first step”. Lord Bethell told The Independent that, in order to address obesity, Britain needs “20 different measures, all of them quite complex”.
But he said Mr Sunak will “learn a lot” from the smoking ban, and insisted that health interventions “can really be popular”.
“It will remind Downing Street that the public are hard over on things like junk food levies, gambling levies and minimum prices for drinking,” he said.
The director of the Obesity Health Alliance, Katharine Jenner, said she was “delighted” that the PM had banned smoking for future generations, but that tackling obesity needs the same focus.
“If this government really is committed to seeing the next generation grow up healthily, they also need to tackle the flood of unhealthy food and drink in our supermarkets and on our high streets,” she said.
But she added that ministers have failed to implement their own laws to “stop children being relentlessly bombarded with manipulative advertising and promotions”.
“This is not about removing choice – it’s about making the healthy choice the easy choice,” she said, calling for restrictions on junk food advertising.
And Dr Layla McCay, director of policy at the NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals, said the health service would come under “unsustainable pressure” without action to tackle obesity.
“The prime minister’s intention to ban cigarette sales for younger generations is a powerful and important step, but it comes as his government has failed to implement its own food strategy, which recommended sugar and salt taxes and restrictions on advertising,” she said.
She said the decision was “hard to justify” given obesity is one of the leading causes of preventable death and causes a number of long-term illnesses.
“The government needs to tackle this issue head-on rather than hiding behind ‘nanny-state’ excuses,” she added.
