The body politic has no business telling us how we should be eating

THERE is one alleged problem, nay crisis, featured prominently in both the Fine Gael and Labour manifestos but there is no mention in the Programme for Government.

And a good it is thing too. Not only are the claims of an obesity epidemic often wildly exaggerated, but the science linking weight to unfavourable mortality outcomes is also frequently non-existent or distorted.

Campaigners are very fond of telling us blithely that the estimated number of overweight children in Ireland has trebled in the last decade. More than 300,000 children are now overweight or obese, don’t you know?