It's clear that we have to do something, at this rate we'll all be too fat to run away from the rising sea levels. To be more serious, in about twenty years it'll cost the NHS more than we're currently willing to pay, and we'll have a generation with shorter, less healthy life spans than their parents. And it's all addressable.
It's not a unitary problem, of course. Poorer people will struggle with access to decent food, but really, what are they going to do with an organic veg box? I read some interesting articles about 'bandwidth scarcity' which actually makes a lot of sense – if you've got a life where you spend all your days worrying about low-level stuff, how to a pay bill, will you get enough hours next week, you don't get home and think let's plan a meal. No, you want to sit in front of the TV and shovel breaded chicken-derived lumps into your mouth. That's a more significant social change in which we free people from constant, abrading worry. Governments are invested in the language of hard-works and self-declared strivers, so I can't see that happening.
Richer people get to splurge to excess, because, why not? Obesity is generally a gradual thing. You don't eat a single packet of biscuits, look down and think, fuck where did my feet go? By the time a bloke looks down and can't see his pole d'amour because someone has put a fleshy Uluru in the way (I'll sure the ladies have a similar moment of horror), it's too late, for many it's a defeat and they may as well carry on. It's easier to stay at a reasonable weight than lose weight to get there.
So, yeah, big changes. At the social level, addressing a lifestyle where we drive everywhere, removing constant worry, standing up to food industry and supermarkets, making exercise facilities cheap and available to all (and invest in them, everyone should have reasonable, non-driving access to a sports/leisure centre), value and maintain parks and outdoor facilities, improve access to sports and exercise at school.*
To do this would significant political will, of course. Telling people to get out of their cars, moving away from divisive language and policies, actually funding things that don't benefit their friends in industry, or tailoring laws so as to not trouble them too much, ending their obsequiousness to supermarkets because they might provide a few minimum-wage jobs.
*yeah, like everyone else, I was put off sport and exercise for life. Good to hear it might have improved. It was fucking awful in my day.
