Live Longer Wales

Out we come and they pop us on the scales.

Weight matters from the first moment of our lives.

Our genes are important, but in our age of cheap, abundant food

we face a lifetime of temptation.

In Wales, it is a battle we are losing.

The Welsh figures are very similar to what we're seeing

in the United States, very high numbers,

alarming prevalence in children,

and certainly it's a crisis by any standard.

It is clearly the case that there is more obesity

and it starts younger and younger.

So, is obesity so pervasive that fatness is the new normal?

The more we feed our faces so we end up ballooning around here,

the more likely we are to end up in places like this,

with everybody else picking up the bill.

I feel so strongly because I don't want to see a Welsh nation

which is unfit and unhealthy,

that spends more money on the NHS

than putting it into things that could be better.

Is it now time we all took serious steps to get thinner?

I am not afraid of using the law

to create the conditions that we want to see

in order to make sure we succeed.

But should my bulging waistline

really be the responsibility of government,

or should we Welsh take charge of our own lives

and do something about the shape we're in?

I'm Steve Evans, the BBC's Berlin correspondent, a Welshman abroad.

I was brought up in Bridgend in South Wales, and ever since,

you know, I've been on a diet trying to keep the thing down.

I've lived in America, the land of the fat,

and now I live in Germany, the land of the bulging belly.

But, you know what? We Welsh can compete.

The figures show that obesity here is as bad as anywhere,

worse than England, worse than Scotland.

I love food, and I hate being lectured by do-gooders,

so I want to find the truth about obesity and what we can do about it.

There is a scientific formula to define obesity,

a measure of our weight compared to our height - our body mass index.

On this measure, and according to official figures,

three in every five Welsh adults - 59% -

are either overweight or obese, seriously fat.

And one in three children are overweight or seriously fat.

Our waistlines are bulging,

and it's happened in the last 30 years.

It wasn't always like that, though.

# The sun will always shine

# On your Butlin holiday. #

This is Butlins in the '60s, post-war Britain,

still with a rationing mentality, even on holiday.

Meat and two veg.

We didn't all have cars, nor a television in every home.

This certainly wasn't feed-your-face Britain -

no eat-all-you-can restaurants here.

ARCHIVE PRESENTER: 4oz precisely of roast beef. 3oz of spring greens.

Only 4oz of beef?

So how did we turn into a nation of fatties?

We've taken much from America.

We devour the best - the music and the movies.

But also some of the downside - like super-sized portions

leading to super-sized people.

I just love these places, I just love 'em.

This is what you call a breakfast, a proper breakfast.

What I really want... What I really want is the California omelette,

and that is a three-egg omelette with avocado, bacon,

jack cheese and a side of salsa.

That's what I want, but you know what?

I'm going to ease up just a bit,

I'm going to ease up on the calories.

What can I get you to eat today?

I'd like three eggs over easy. OK. I'd like a side of hash browns...

'Some things are hard to resist.'

That's OK, that's perfect. And I would like...

'Food's measured in calories - units of energy.

'If we take in more calories than we burn off by activity

'our weight goes up. Simple as that.'

It's in the last 30 years that the waistlines of America

have really expanded.

At the end of the '70s, 15% of Americans

were seriously overweight, obese.

Today it's 36% - one in every three.

I'm going to North Carolina to meet someone

whom Time magazine called one of the world's 100 most influential people.

Professor Kelly Brownell

is the head of the Sanford School of Public Policy

and he's one of the world's go-to experts on obesity.

I should say he knows how hard it is to lose weight

because he himself is very overweight - obese.

He fights the battle every day.

What's basically happened, then, in countries like the US,

like Britain and Wales, what's changed in the last 30 years?

The food environment has become toxic.

Toxic is a strong word,

it implies that the environment is somehow poisonous

and if people are exposed to this environment they get sick.

That's exactly what's happened with food.

Portion sizes are way too big,

the marketing of food is relentless, powerful and persuasive.

Foods are priced in ways that make them attractive.

All these things converge to form this perfect storm of factors

that make it almost inevitable

that consumption of poor foods is going to be too high.

But we decide what we put into our own mouths.

Nobody forces us to eat food.

So shouldn't we take responsibility?

We could count on personal responsibility to prevail

with problems like obesity, but it's contrary

to the way we address problems of health in general.

Now, we have a very unhealthy food environment,

some people have the willpower and the restraint to prevail over it,

but there are fewer and fewer such people,

and as a consequence obesity is stampeding out of control.

Not only out of control,

not confined to America.

But those American ways, those American portions,

are now part of our country, part of Wales.

We are a bulging nation.

Is fatness now normal? Do we care?

This factory in New Tredegar makes sexy underwear -

but not for the larger lady.

Making this stuff is a pretty sedentary task, sitting down.

Tina Aver-Jones and Judith Dimond have been working here for years.

When you are making this fancy underwear for pin-thin people,

what do you think? What do you think about those women,

what do you think about their body image?

Do you think they are more attractive, or what?

Maybe they think they're attractive,

but then again, thin isn't everything.

It's still a personality you need to have,

it's nice being beautiful and a size 6 or a size 8,

but I don't think being thin is everything.

It don't matter what size you are,

it's the person that you are, your personality, how you treat people.

Really? Doesn't everybody really want to be thin?

Well, I've been thin but, I mean, when I got married I was a 12,

and I just gradually put weight on, but my husband's not moaning,

he's not - you know.

But the underwear, I wouldn't mind wearing the underwear we make

if they done it in bigger sizes.

Or... Mm, you want me to slim?

It's not for me to tell you what to do!

Oh, I'm not saying I wouldn't like to lose weight,

I should, really, but, um....

I like my food too much!

I like going out for meals, and...

No, I'm not particularly bothered about my weight.

I mean, I wouldn't want to lose weight,

I've always been the way I am, and I'm happy as I am.

Why do we worry about obesity, then? Why do we worry about it?

Should we worry about it?

Some people say we should because of the health issues,

but I think you are built the way you're built,

and I don't think everybody is made to be thin and skinny.

I think everybody has been built as they are

and that's how we are supposed to be,

and whatever illnesses we are going to have

I think we'll eventually have anyway, no matter what size or weight we are.

Except you've got diabetes... Mm...

And that's because of your eating. It's because of my weight, yeah.

So you could do something about that. Mm.

You could. I could do something about it.

Why don't you? I think it's willpower

is...is down to it.

My willpower's nil, sometimes.

It's easy to see why Tina and Judith like food so much.

Food is delightful. It is abundant and cheap.

Who wouldn't be tempted?

But there is a cost to giving in to temptation.

Obesity's a word with which we are now bombarded.

Just feel the flesh - we know when we're too fat.

If you're a male and if your waist is expanded to above 37-40 inches,

you need to take that as a warning that you need to lose some weight.

If you're female and your waist is expanded to, let's say,

between - I think it's about 32 and 35 inches,

you need to be considering losing some weight.

Because with an elevated waist circumference,

your risk of type 2 diabetes, your risk of heart disease

and a number of other conditions

including some forms of cancer goes up.

The cost of our individual flab will be picked up by all of us

who pay for the NHS.

The figures show roughly one in four Welsh people seriously overweight,

obese, but it goes right across the social spectrum,

rich to poor, town and country,

sometimes slightly higher, sometimes slightly lower

depending on where you are,

but with the South Wales Valleys particularly badly affected.

There are now special ambulances for fat people,

and when the fire brigade talk about heavy lifting

we know what they mean.

And in this room behind me,

another way in which obesity pumps up the cost to the public purse.

This is what they call a bariatric chair,

it's a specially built dental chair for seriously obese people,

people weighing more than 20 stone.

And it's one of the ways that the health service has to pay more

because of obesity.

Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hip and knee replacements

all result from burdening the body

with too much weight.

But should the Government

pick up the burden

for our individual decisions?

I think government has a responsibility

to create the conditions in which people are able to live healthily

and to look after their own weight.

But it is more than education, it's about motivation as well,

and it is about persuading people that if they want to live longer

and they want to live healthily,

then that means eating better, moving more and drinking less.

Why are you telling me how to live my life?

Why are you telling me to get exercise?

Why are you telling me to eat less?

I choose to live my life, I like eating,

I don't want to be nannied by you, thank you -

nice though you may be, don't nanny me.

Actually, I have no problem with a nanny state.

I think that, actually, what the state does

when it helps people to understand the consequences of their actions

is not nannying at all,

it is simply acting as one responsible adult would to another.

I think the reason that we do it

is because we have to explain to people

that where people exercise that choice, that choice has consequences

and people have to be responsible, therefore,

for the consequences of those things in their lives.

It means that when they fall ill,

and they are more likely to fall ill,

with conditions like diabetes and other chronic conditions,

they will not be able to expect simply that the NHS will be there

to pick up the pieces for them and act as though the health service

is responsible for the choices that the people have made.

You are the Welsh Government's token thinnie,

I've looked at the pictures of the others,

and I'll tell ya - there's a bit of girth around that cabinet table,

"bulk" writ very large indeed, you don't practise what you preach.

I'm quite certain that my colleague the Sports Minister

would be more than able to compete for the title that you've offered me.

We do need to practise what we preach.

We live - as ministers, and many other people - sedentary lives,

we are behind desks, we go up in the lift,

we do all sorts of things that we could do better, too,

and there is a bit of leading by example where we can.

If you look at the statistics,

we Welsh seem to take the wrong choices.

We get off our backsides less than people elsewhere.

We're at the bottom of the British league for walking and cycling,

and doing less now than we did five years ago.

We spend more time watching TV than anyone else in the UK -

on average, four and a half hours a day.

But, it seems, thin is desirable, thin means success.

Fat is not sexy, so we believe.

Though we do seem to mind fatness in women more than fatness in men.

I'm in Knightsbridge in central London,

Sloane Street back there, Harvey Nichols here,

very fancy shop indeed.

This is the natural territory of the Sloane ranger,

those pin-thin people, usually women, not so often men.

What, I wonder, is the relationship between money,

dare I say class, and fatness or thinness?

Actually the relationship between money and obesity

is complicated,

but in Wales the worst areas for obesity are the poorest.

This is the big hero round here, Johnny Owen, "Matchstick Man,"

admired for his boxing, not his weight.

There are no clear answers why poor areas are fat areas.

Surely poor people can't lack willpower?

Do they lack knowledge?

Or do they buy fatty, sweet foods because they're cheaper and easier?

Do people struggling to make a living with low-paid jobs

simply not have the energy and the time to reach beyond the burger?

There are no easy answers to this.

The Welsh government's spending money on well-meaning schemes

aimed, particularly, at parents.

This is a publicly funded cookery class in Merthyr.

They're learning how to cook burgers - lentil burgers.

Pop one each in, right?

So, once you've done that, give over to David.

How much did you know about calories and nutrition

and what to eat and what not to eat before the course?

Nothing, really.

It was the convenience of going to the shop,

and whatever was cheaper, I'd get that.

Why are you learning this dish?

Because my son's only eight months old,

I want him to grow up to eat healthier

than what I did when I was younger.

What did you eat when you were younger, then?

Well, food was cooked in the chipper!

HE CHUCKLES

And if somebody told you then,

when you were younger, you were going to eat lentils...?

I wouldn't have done that, I wouldn't have eaten it when I was younger.

What's prompted you, what's made you say, "I've got to sort this out"?

Well, my children are getting older now

and I don't want them to be growing up

and just going for the cheaper stuff, and when you make it yourself

it's more healthier, then.

I think what you're making is brilliant. Yeah.

I'd eat it every night.

But are your kids going to eat it, or are they going to say,

"Mam, I want a Big Mac!"?

Well, no, because they could have a Big Mac as a treat,

maybe once a month or something, but if they start eating it now

they're going to get used to eating it,

so they're not going to moan about it when they grow up,

then, are they?

When you see all these obese kids and stuff on the telly,

and the programmes you watch on the telly

where the kids are that big they can't run up the stairs

or nothing like that...

Your son will not be like that. No. No. He'll never be like that.

The aim is to get people interested in what they're eating.

Is it patronising? Does it do any good?

Emma Wilkins is project manager.

How can you be obese at five? What's going on?

What we see within our project is, obviously,

overweight parents have overweight children,

because the meals that they're cooking, obviously,

are the meals the children are eating

and that energy balance is obviously not being burnt off.

Losing weight's all about willpower,

it's about deciding that you are going to change your diet

and eat less and all that kind of...

Why don't people think,

"I look like a great big tub of lard, I'm going to sort myself out"?

Why don't they?

I'll disagree with that, slightly.

I think it's all about attitude towards healthy eating,

not so much willpower.

I think if you teach people - nutrition is knowledge -

and if you teach people about what they should be eating,

I mean, with the greatest willpower in the world,

if people don't know what's healthy and what's not,

how do they know that they're following a correct diet?

Do you ever shout at them? Do you ever say to somebody,

"Have a look at yourself, sort yourself out,

"you're a great big tub of lard and you need to stop feeding your face"?

Do you ever say that to them?

No, that's a disgrace, I'd never say that to people.

Why not? You should.

That's not very helpful, what is that going to do to people?

Maybe it'll make them think.

Well, that's going to isolate that person even more.

What we teach is trying to get them to change their behaviours

towards healthy eating and physical activity

and getting them to have a love for it.

But how do you get people to buy broccoli rather than burgers

when there aren't many greengrocers?

In Dowlais in Merthyr, Betty Murphy's shop

is the last bastion of the broad bean.

This is a vegetable shop that's been here for absolutely decades.

They have got peas...in a pod.

Think of that. Apparently, what you do is,

you get the peas out of the pod and then cook 'em. Amazing.

This is Dowlais, clearly it's changed drastically.

It was built on steel and coal, it was built on manual labour,

people who ate up those calories in the work they did.

Now, outside this door, it's fast food.

Chips and grease and speed and calories,

without the manual labour to burn those calories off.

When Betty's mother ran the shop it was a thriving business,

but today the numbers coming through the door are dwindling.

The things people come to buy have changed.

Well, the younger element,

they seem to go mainly for fast foods.

They don't seem to cook

the same vegetables

as what they used to, years ago.

It's an older person that would buy broad beans,

you wouldn't have a young person coming in here now

and asking for broad beans.

Why is...? I don't know, I don't think they know what a broad bean is.

How have people changed? How's the street changed?

What people eat, that kind of stuff.

Well, the street and Dowlais itself have changed tremendously, isn't it?

We're only a handful of shops around here now,

whereas in my mother's era, then, as we put it,

the only takeaway that you had was the fish and chip shop.

But I think sometimes they pick up the easiest thing that they can get

to put a meal on the table, rather than - if you were going to cook it,

it's going to take a little while before you are eating your food.

What if somebody said to you, "But we're better off now,

"we're richer, and we just eat too much -

"we eat chips, we eat burgers,

"whereas in your mum's day it was a luxury"?

Mm, I... I can't answer that question,

cos I wouldn't think that they would say that they were richer.

Most probably they'd say they were poorer, wouldn't they?

But I don't know, I can't answer that, isn't it? You know.

Because to put a meal on a table it isn't all that dear.

I would say they are paying more to have a takeaway.

The mass food industry is powerful and effective -

Big Food, some people call it.

They are masters of marketing.

They have produced food amazingly cheaply that we want to eat.

Their scientists refine ingredients - the sugar, the salt,

the fat - that it's hard to resist.

It IS tasty.

Can the lowly carrot compete?

I know nobody that overdoes it on carrots or turnips or broccoli,

there are only certain foods that people have trouble with,

and there's a biology and psychology of this.

Biologically, these foods are hijacking the brain.

They're affecting the reward pathways in the brain,

very much like substances of abuse,

that make it very difficult for people to stop.

They're highly reinforcing,

and there are evolutionary reasons for that.

But they're also psychologically very reinforcing,

because of all the food marketing that's been done.

So we associate the colours, the logos, the music,

the jingles of these various companies

with good feeling, warmth, family, love, sex, even.

And these become very powerful associations,

so when you take the bite of that ice cream or that candy bar,

or that salty snack food, or that sugared beverage,

it is triggering both biological and psychological reactions

that are very heavily reinforcing.

Losing weight is hard work. The bulge fights back.

Mia Evans once weighed 17.5 stone.

Now she's down to a slimline 9 stone 1 - so, it is possible.

Tell me what you used to eat for breakfast, and what you used to eat.

I used to eat either a pack of Jaffa Cakes or a packet of Mini Rolls -

six Mini Rolls would be my breakfast.

Then I'd have a packet of crisps, and I'd just eat junk food all day,

and then in the evening I'd have some chips or...just junk food,

just lived off junk food. And now you don't eat like that.

No. What difference has it made to you as a person?

A lot.

A lot, it has changed me a lot. How?

It has given me more confidence, it HAS given me more confidence.

I do feel better in myself, and other health-wise as well.

It has helped a lot, my health.

Mia made a big decision to change her way of life.

It's not something I've done recently, it's been over...

I've been going back and fore, different diets,

for the last - over 20-odd years, you know?

And, just...I was ill, my blood pressure was extremely high

and I just decided that all the different diets I'd been on,

been yo-yo dieting all my life, and I just decided that enough was enough.

And yo-yo dieting means you diet like crazy

and your weight goes down....

You go down and you put your back up,

so I was losing about a stone, two stone,

and then I was going - I was eating more, I was going back up.

And I'd go back and fore to different classes

and I would lose a pound here and put two pound back on,

and I just got fed up with it.

A lot of people who want to lose weight will be thinking,

"What's the secret?

"Is there some sort of magic food, is there a magic diet?"

No, there isn't. The only thing, I would say, is willpower.

And if you really want to do it, you'll do it.

You look great now.

But are you happy being thin, or what? What do you feel about it?

I don't think - I'm never happy with my weight.

Can always be lower.

You always want to go that one step...

I think I'd be happy if I lost another half a stone.

I am trying...you know I am - I still go...

I mean, it's not a diet, for...

It's a diet for life,

and it's not a diet, it's a change of eating, it's healthier eating.

Fitter than ever, and not all down to a pretty brutal diet.

Mia keeps fit by walking daily around the lake near her home.

But food is the key - after all,

it takes about 20 minutes' walking to burn off a biscuit.

People need to be encouraged to increase their physical activity,

and I am not talking here

about the necessity to go to the gymnasium every day,

I'm talking about increasing everyday physical activity,

walking at every opportunity there is to walk,

whether that be in work, whether it be at home,

whether it be during leisure time.

But the amount of physical activity you need to do

to burn off a biscuit, let's say, is immense,

and it's painful, it's dreary.

Walking off a biscuit takes 20 minutes.

WHISPERS: I don't want to do it, I don't want to do it.

Well, I think this is a conscious decision

that people need to make, and I hear this argument all the time,

that you need to burn - to expend 100 kilocalories

you need to do an awful lot of exercise,

but my point is, it needs to be regular,

it needs to be repetitive, it needs to be daily -

is the key, I think, to energy balance.

Tredegar Ironsides Rugby Football Club

was founded nearly 70 years ago - as, they put it,

"A club built by returning heroes from the Second World War".

Still heroes today, young men participating,

exercising - though these days they struggle to get the players.

The culture these days - a lot of kids like to watch sport,

but it's that culture

where they've got all the hi-tech mod cons in the house

and they've got everything they believe they want,

their social media network sites,

they spend most of their day on that talking about things,

but when it actually comes up to get up and do something

they prefer to be at their home

in front of their computer, unfortunately.

WHISTLE BLOWS Let's go, come on.

These men are committed to keep the side going,

but they're also fathers who know how hard it is to get kids active.

You're a teacher. Yeah. What are the kids in your school

doing with their spare time,

are they playing rugby, or what?

There's a few playing rugby,

at the minute, for the local teams in Ebbw Vale, a few over in Tredegar,

but generally, you know, it's PlayStation,

it's just things in the house really.

I guess they are not getting out and about as much as we did

when we were kids.

Like, I grew up in a roughish area and we always went out and played,

but, I think, with now - the way the society is,

and people coming to the community that you don't really know,

there is that element where you think, strangers...

Where I used to go out and do whatever,

I don't think I'd let my children do that now,

I got to be honest,

because just for the fact that - you don't know who's about.

It can be a bit windy above Tredegar

at the very top of the Valley.

For many youngsters,

it's clear that staying in the warm indoors is more attractive.

Why kick a ball in the cold,

when you could fatten your backside by clicking a video-game control?

But today's couch athletes

are more likely to become tomorrow's patients.

So, what can be done?

This year, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson

was asked to chair a review by the Welsh Assembly

looking at the best way to get children more physically active.

She's got very definite ideas.

The report's quite radical, because we have one recommendation,

and that was very deliberate so that, you know,

we couldn't just have it all top-sliced

and nothing actually change.

If we want to change obesity, we need to do something right now,

not put it off into the distance. So, we want PE to be a core subject,

and underneath that we want teachers to have really good experience

and be properly trained in how to deliver physical literacy,

which is all the basics that make up physical activity in sport,

because, actually, parents don't play with their children in the same way,

kids aren't allowed out, you know,

to play outside their houses in the same way that they used to.

And, you know, we have to make sure that especially girls

have all the skills so that they're fit and healthy for much longer.

But kids do do gym, as I'd still call it - PE in school,

it's still pretty well a core subject, might not be technically,

but it still happens. So what's the problem?

Children are doing PE in school,

but is it being delivered to the absolute best level?

There are some great schools,

but the reality is, the absolute worst-case scenario is,

most primary-school teachers are women,

most girls drop out of doing sport between 9 and 11.

Their experience of PE in school would have probably been pretty bad

and then they are lucky if they get four hours' instruction

in how to deliver PE.

And probably while they're doing their teacher training

they wouldn't have taught PE and wouldn't have been measured on it.

So suddenly you've got these people trying to teach PE to 30 kids,

which is unbelievably difficult.

And to make it a good experience for every single one

is a massive challenge.

And we also have to be aware, you know, if there's a 40-minute lesson,

that it's not OK to waste ten minutes either end changing -

you know, that actually all they're doing is ten minutes of exercise.

Why do you feel so strongly?

I feel so strongly because I don't want to see a Welsh nation

which is unfit and unhealthy, that spends more money with the NHS

than putting it into things that could be better.

And, actually, as a Welsh nation,

if we want to compete on the worldwide stage,

we need to have people who are fit and healthy and able to deliver.

Imagine a world where children liked exercising and didn't eat sweets.

One school in Bridgend has tried to turn that dream into reality.

We operate a healthy eating policy,

we don't allow children to bring sweets, chocolates

or anything that we would call fflwcs, then,

for want of a better word, to school.

We've also seen a huge difference to the amount of litter on the yard,

crisps aren't allowed either.

Now, some children bring packed lunches to school,

and we encourage parents to give them a healthy, substantial lunchbox,

and then the rest of the children will take school dinners.

And the county, as many counties in Wales,

have now moved towards healthy menus.

Or, having said that, we do have chips on a Friday for a treat,

but usually there is a balanced meal there.

The school's healthy-eating policy is backed up by exercise.

The statutory requirement in primary schools

is 40 minutes a week for games,

40 minutes for gymnastics or dancing.

But here there are lots of extra after-school activities.

Doing that is the enjoyable part of it, we do so much,

there are rugby clubs, football clubs, netball clubs,

cross-country clubs, and they take place mostly outside school hours,

and if we didn't do that,

I think the children would suffer, to be honest with you.

We do it with the hope that afterwards

they might pursue their own interests and go outside school

and join rugby clubs or athletics clubs, you know,

and to do it that way, really.

Driving the school's approach are the teachers.

Games these days are surrounded by safety regulations

that make plain exercise a bureaucratic obstacle course.

It is in the back of our minds, to be honest,

and I'm sure some teachers probably opt out of taking part

so much in sport and giving the opportunity to their children

because we have to fill in forms,

we have to have parental consent if we take the children off the campus

at any time, but, as we say, we have to push that to one side,

because if we did think of things like that

we wouldn't do any sport after school.

What we may be seeing here is a change in cultural attitudes

towards our weight.

The hope is that it starts in one school and then moves to another,

and before you know it, we're all doing it.

These kids are lucky enough to have good playing fields.

But all the effort would be wasted

if they didn't have the right facilities when they leave school.

This terrific-looking building is the Phoenix Community Centre

in Fishguard, where people come together to exercise, certainly -

but also just to have fun.

It's used by sports clubs, a brass band, WeightWatchers.

Until retiring recently I was in sports development

for over 25 years, and I would say the biggest change

in that has been the shift away from school-based sport

to being much more reliant on the clubs and the voluntary structure.

And that has brought with it a number of problems.

So, although there would apparently be more awareness

about the need for exercise, I think there is an awareness about that,

in terms of facilities and the social infrastructure

to accommodate it, I think there is a major problem.

For the overwhelming majority of us,

sport is a vehicle for regular exercise,

that we have to enjoy in order to continue to be motivated to do it,

so that's the key, how do you get that motivation?

What's the answer?

In a nutshell, I think it's the social enjoyment

of doing things together in groups, and as part of the community.

If it's part of the community,

part of the school, part of the local club, then you can do it,

I don't think you can do it just by moralising at people

and saying, "You, individually, are inferior

"because you are not exercising regularly."

You've got to provide a way of life

that engages them in regular activity.

The Phoenix is a public community centre, not some fancy private club.

It was built by grants as well as by local people just raising money.

Public funds, certainly, but also determined people.

What strikes me is, a lot of people moan.

They say, "Oh, the Government's not doing enough,

"the schools don't do enough,

"all those kids, they sit on their backsides all day..." Yeah.

But, actually, this is fabulous. You've done it.

Yes, but, er... What do you mean, "Yes, but"?

You exude energy and enthusiasm, despite yourself.

And is that the key?

Yeah, I mean, obviously you do need that,

and I suppose to be objective about it,

I mean, one of the things we benefited from,

because we've had so many different sports and clubs pull together,

we actually had a big pool of volunteers to draw on,

so when it came to submitting funding applications

we had a lot of expertise to draw on.

Our lottery application, we did a word count, ran to 100,000 words.

It's like writing a PhD! You need a lot of expertise to do that,

rather than you standing here, saying, "Yes, you've done this,

"and this is so exceptional," what we should be discussing

is why isn't every community having facilities like this?

Cos that's what's really needed if we want to make a difference

on a national scale, it's got to happen on a national scale -

not one or two good examples.

The world over, politicians have a tendency to nag.

Everywhere, it's now the vogue for them to intervene

to try to save us from ourselves.

In New York, Mayor Bloomberg is trying to regulate

against super-sized, super-sugary drinks.

This is the single biggest step any city, I think,

has ever taken to curb obesity,

certainly not the last step that lots of cities are going to take,

and we believe that WILL help save lives.

The Bloomberg administration in New York City

has been way out front of other jurisdictions

in taking action on obesity.

They were the first to require calories to be labelled

on restaurant menus, they've had a variety

of very hard-hitting public education campaigns

that have helped address the obesity problem,

and I think they have been leaders, and that's clear leaders.

Now, the one area that's been most controversial,

and which is now embroiled in legal action,

was the proposal to restrict portion sizes for sugar beverages,

which, by the way, I think -

aside from whatever legal problems there are -

makes very good public health sense.

Sugared beverages are the category of food most strongly related to risk

for obesity and diabetes, much stronger than any other category

of food, with exception, perhaps, of fast food.

And we know from science that the larger the portion sizes are,

the more people consume -

but they generally don't realise that they consume more.

So, restricting portion sizes of sugared beverages

makes all the sense in the world.

Kelly Brownell likens the battle against obesity

to the social changes in attitudes

that happened in the campaign against smoking.

The biggest public health victory of the last century

was the war against smoking,

and fewer than half the people now smoke in the United States

than used to, and you can count the lives saved by the millions.

A number of things contributed to that - the most important thing

was the high taxes on cigarettes.

What happened was that the culture changed,

people began to see the tobacco companies for what they are,

and this gave government permission to go ahead and act

on things like taxes.

Aneurin Bevan's health service was set up

when hunger and being underweight was the big worry.

Now, it's the disease of abundance - obesity.

So, should governments do more about the new scourge?

After all, the taxpayer will have to pick up the bill

for the consequences.

So do we need more nannying?

More out-and-out regulation in our lives?

Maybe the thing to do is to tell people,

you can eat yourself sick, literally so in later life,

and then maybe you move down the waiting list for treatment

from the health service, that kind of thing -

put a proper penalty on it, put a proper cost on it.

I'm not in favour of penalising people in that way,

but I am in favour of something that, here in Cardiff,

in the Cardiff and Vale Health Board, for example,

now if you present yourself for an operation

and because of your weight you are less likely to benefit

clinically from that operation,

then before you are offered that treatment

you will be expected to go on a weight management course,

provided for you, free for you to attend,

convenient for you to get to, and so on.

But if you don't put yourself in a position

where that treatment will be effective,

then that treatment won't be available to you.

I'm quite prepared, myself, to take radical action

where we think that it's possible and necessary

to create the conditions in which people can eat healthily,

aware that in other parts of the world, for example,

attempts have been made to limit the supply of fizzy drinks -

you'll know that there are sometimes real legal difficulties with that,

there's an industry here, and in New York where Mayor Bloomberg

proposed a law of exactly this sort,

he's mired in the courts

because the industry is determined not to allow that to happen.

So there are more than one set of pressures in the system here,

but where we can, and where it is sensible to do so,

I am not afraid of using the law

to create the conditions that we want to see

in order to make sure we succeed.

We've all got our excuses for eating too much

or not getting out to exercise.

One more biscuit won't hurt, will it?

Just one more wafer-thin mint.

The gym's too expensive.

Or there aren't any exercise facilities nearby.

"No facilities for exercise"?!

Please, this is the best facility for exercise

on the whole of this planet.

It's the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path,

but these "facilities for exercise" exist all over Wales, and for free.

It is, it seems for me, a matter of personal choice,

a matter of decision.

We can either decide to move our legs

or we can choose to sit on our backsides.

Yes, we're bombarded with delicacies and temptations

by the food industry -

an abundance of ultra-cheap food, packaged for attention.

But we can choose what to put in our mouths.

We all pick up the bill for ill-health.

But one thing is clear.

We decide what we eat - and we live with the consequences.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd