Banning fast food adverts before 9pm won’t make any difference to our nation’s health – Simon Carter

Back in late May, I did something I hadn’t done for over three years. On the back of two months of life in lockdown hoovering down food and drinking cider without a care in the world, I weighed myself. The result shocked me.
Simon was shocked when he weighed himself back in May ....Simon was shocked when he weighed himself back in May ....
Simon was shocked when he weighed himself back in May ....

Regular snacking and quaffing three or four bottles of the finest west country produce money can buy on a regular basis had seen me balloon to around 17 and a half stone - around four stone more than when I had last stood on the scales.

If I walked up three flights of stairs at The News HQ in Lakeside, I was out of breath. I’m 51 years old and I’m 6ft 5in tall. And according to the NHS’ online Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator, I was over two stone overweight.

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For the first time in my life, I decided to diet. Out went the crisps, the cheese, the bread, the large portions and - this one was really hard to take - the cider. Also out - out of hibernation, that is - was my bike.

For the last two months I’ve been getting up at 6am every weekday to cycle around 10-15 miles before going to work. Sometimes I’ve cycled in the evenings, though not as far. I cycle to Hayling Island some mornings, I cycle to South Parade pier on others. The scenery is beautiful, the air so fresh. If you’ve never done it, why not?

I’ve eaten more fish than a colony of herons, more lettuce leaves than a horde of rabbits. I went the whole of June without drinking any alcohol, my first month’s abstinence since I was a teenager.

I have not had a single McDonald’s, KFC, kebab or pizza in two months, though I did allow myself one visit to Portsdown Hill to feast on a Mick’s Monster Burger while looking out over one of the best views anywhere in southern England.

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The end result of all that lettuce and cycling is I’ve lost over two and a half stone. My BMI is now very much in the ‘healthy weight’ category, and I feel fitter, I feel healthier. I feel good about myself, and our lives are so busy we very rarely get the chance to take a step back and say that about ourselves.

I have written all this to underline how easy it is to put on weight, to pile on the pounds while forgetting to count the calories. Lest we forget, we live in a fast food dominated society - every time I turn on the tv or radio there seems to be an advert for McDonald’s or KFC or Just Eat.

A few weeks ago, the most read story on the Portsmouth News website one particular day was about McDonald’s reopening some local branches for the first time since lockdown was imposed. My heart sank: is that what people REALLY want to read about these days? I’ve been a journalist for over 30 years and, until now, I never once entertained the thought that stories about the opening times of burger restaurants would matter so much to my industry. Times have changed, obviously, and not for the better.

The fact the government allowed fast food restaurants to reopen before gyms threw open their doors again - and yes, I did go to mine on Saturday and, yes, they could easily have reopened a few weeks ago - was another sorry indictment of UK2020. I’m told the politicians are ready to unveil new plans to tackle obesity. That noise you can hear in Whitehall is a stable door closing and some horses bolting ...

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To no huge surprise, Public Health England have found a dramatic rise in the risk of hospitalisation and death from coronavirus from people who are overweight. As a result, the government are now expected to ban junk food adverts on television before the 9pm watershed. They will be outlawed entirely online.

Hands up who feels that will make a blind bit of difference? It’s not just the huge global names with vast advertising budgets, it’s the phenomenal amount of takeaways in our communities. Have you taken a walk down North End High Street recently?

Portsmouth has a huge amount of takeaways, but I’m sure it’s no better or worse than any similar sized-city in England. They must all attract enough custom, otherwise they’d shut. Banning KFC ads before 9pm isn’t going to affect these businesses one iota.

The motto of this column is simple: if you want to lose weight - REALLY want to lose weight - then you can. If you possess the will power. If I can do it, so can you. If I can go a whole month without drinking any cider, you can go the same time without a McDonald’s Big Tasty With Bacon (860 calories - for comparison purposes, I cycled for 90 minutes at the gym on Saturday and burnt off 620 calories, or so the bike told me).

But when you see the amount of takeaways on our streets, it can be hard to conjure up that will power. Very hard indeed.